Fraudsters who try to con people out of money via fake emails and text messages stole almost €4m last year, according to new figures from the Dutch payments association.

That is up almost fourfold on the €1m which con men got away with in 2017, the association said in press release.

Nevertheless, the total damage cause by banking fraud is down 2% because of improvements in stopping fake payment cards, automatic payments and invoices, the association said. In addition, no cases of fraud involving contactless payment theft were reported.

The total amount of banking relating fraud reached around €13m, the figures show, down from €80m in 2012, when serious efforts were first made to tackle internet financial crime.

The sharp increase in phishing success is due to technological advances which allow the fraudsters to set up bigger and more frequent campaigns, the association said. The emails looking for information are also more like the originals and language errors have been removed.

In addition fraudsters are more likely to address the recipient directly, which makes the mails more realistic.