ONLINE credit card fraud has soared with dodgy transactions soaring to $417.6 million in 2016.

The alarming figure highlighted by the Australian Payments Network reveals online credit card fraud has doubled in the space of just six years.

The 2016 Australian Payments Fraud Data Report also found fraudsters are following consumers online with card-not-present fraud accounting for 78 per cent of dodgy transactions with a correlating increase in card-not-present fraud.

In 2016, Australians transacted a record $714.5 billion on their cards with fraud accounting for $534 million of this total.

AusPayNet CEO Leila Fourie said while Australia had strong anti-fraud tools in place the worrying trend showed online fraud is still on the rise.

While counterfeit and skimming fraud in Australia remains low levels by international standards, the report notes it did increase domestically in 2016, primarily due to criminals using “ghost terminals”.

These look like real card readers but are not connected to the payments network.

“Card-not-present fraud continues to grow as perpetrators follow increased payments activity online,” Dr Fourie said.

“Australia compares favourably to the UK and US when it comes to fraud rates — and the industry is continuing its efforts to provide fraud prevention strategies that adapt to changing payments trends.

“As Australia transitions towards even higher levels of online payments, customers and merchants need to increase security awareness.”

It also found the rate of card fraud increased to 74.7 cents per $1000, up from 66.9 cents in 2015.