Around £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) was stolen through authorized and unauthorized financial fraud in the UK in 2022, underlining the scale of a problem that continues to beset the banking industry.
(Bloomberg) — Around £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) was stolen through authorized and unauthorized financial fraud in the UK in 2022, underlining the scale of a problem that continues to beset the banking industry.
The losses are equivalent to £2,300 being stolen every single minute last year, according to a report by UK Finance, a lobby group for the industry.
Banks stopped a further £1.2 billion of unauthorized fraud last year, the report said.
Unauthorized payments totaled £727 million, with more than half of those losses coming as a result of stolen card details being used for purchases.
Cases where criminals use stolen card IDs to set up or take over card accounts almost doubled.
Some £485 million of losses came from from authorized fraud. That’s when a person or business is tricked into sending money to individuals posing as a genuine payee.
That included £114 million lost to investment scams, £110 million handed over to criminals posing as police or bank staff and £31 million from romance scams, according to the report.
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Bank Frauds by 30%
The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has seen criminals take advantage of people’s financial worries, promising fake investment opportunities and cheap deals to secure personal details, the report said.
It noted that 78% of authorized fraud cases originate on the internet and called for online platforms to do more to kick fraudsters off their platforms.
While victims of transactions that are unknown to them are legally protected against losses, authorized fraud is more of a grey area.
Those that authorize the payment themselves have no legal protection to cover them for losses under current legislation.
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