Bradford's biggest city centre shopping complex has launched an attack on credit card fraud after the city was singled out as one of Britain's 12 areas most at risk from the crime.

Bradford sits alongside Glasgow and Manchester, and areas in London like Harrow and Enfield, as the most likely to be hit by card fraud.

Now Bradford's Kirkgate Centre is tackling the problem which cost banks across the country £411 million last year.

The Association of Payment Clearing Services has provided training at the areas listed in its survey to tackle the problem.

Retailers from the Kirkgate Centre attended the sessions and were issued with infra-red lamps which pick up markings which cannot be replicated in "cloned" cards. And today the 60-shop centre announced it had signed up for a thumbprint signature scheme which is regarded as one of the most successful ways to tackle the crime.

Card fraud in West Yorkshire shops is estimated to be costing everyone £100 a year and a police spokesman said cloned stolen cards were often used several times before owners realised. Thumbprint is a system which works with customers supplying thumbprints on pads.

A number of individual shops in the Bradford and Keighley areas have adopted it.

Customers have the right to refuse to participate and the retailer then asks for other identification or refuses the sale.

Kirkgate Centre manager Catherine Riley said: "If the purchase is genuine nothing happens but if it turns out to be fraudulent the slip is then passed to the police to help trap the criminal."

She stressed there was no database of customers' fingerprints being collected and the aim was to deter fraudsters.

Mrs Riley said it was up to individual shops but a number had said they were interested.

Kirkgate centre operations' manager Bill McCormack said there had been a good response to the training sessions and a number of tenants were now using the lamps which had been given to them by the association.

Jeff Frankel, chairman of Bradford Retail Action Group, said: "I think it is a brilliant system.

"Anything which cuts down on any type of shop fraud is good."