Seeing card fraud losses come down is cast-iron proof that chip and pin is doing its job.

Criminal gangs used to try and copy a card's magnetic strip in order to produce a counterfeit but with the introduction of chip and pin this is less of an option.

The new banking code requires lenders to be more transparent about charges, the OFT research pre-dates this initiative.

If you have an old style non-chip and pin card or present your card at a till that has not been converted then you will still be able to use a signature.

What seems to be happening is that people are handing over their cards in shops, garages and restaurants the details are being taken down and then used to buy goods and services, mainly online.

Most card users -- 56 percent -- always pay off their balance in full each month and the vast majority of the rest do so most of the time. What's important to them is the length of the interest-free period.

We would never use the £503m figure for pure identity fraud. We would put the figure at £36.9m. The Home Office included the figures for all card fraud. We define identity theft differently.

Instead, what we are seeing are gangs taking note of card details and then using them to shop online.