New proposals to cut card fraud could risk alienating genuine customers, fraud protection company 3rd Man has claimed.

The warning follows new proposals from payments association Apacs covering card-not-present sales online or over the phone, which now accounts for 46 per cent of card fraud.

Apacs has proposed that non-store sales should require buyers to use card readers that would require them to enter their pin numbers.

"Why conjure up further techniques to alarm and confuse genuine consumers?" asked Paul Simms of 3rd Man. "This is not so much about preventing fraud as it is about shifting blame."

"With chip and pin now mandated, the real issue is that risk of fraud lies with either the retailer or the cardholder, not the bank."

Card-not-present fraud amounted to £95.3 million in the UK during the first half of 2006, Apacs figures have shown.

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