More than £570m stolen by fraudsters in first half of 2024

Losses from unauthorised fraud increased in the first half of this year, while losses where people were tricked into transferring money fell, according to banking industry body UK Finance.

In total, criminals stole £571.7 million through unauthorised and authorised fraud in the first half of 2024, a 1.5% decrease compared with the first half of 2023.

Losses due to unauthorised transactions across payment cards, remote banking and cheques were £358 million in the first half of this year, a rise of 5%.

The total number of recorded cases was just over 1.5 million, a 19% increase.

Evidence has shown that criminals have been socially engineering victims to trick them into divulging one-time passcodes to authenticate online transactions, the report said.

Meanwhile, authorised push payment (APP) fraud losses – where someone is tricked into transferring money – totalled £213.7 million, down 11% compared with the first half of last year.

This comprised £166.5 million of personal losses and £47.2 million of business losses.

The total number of APP cases was down 16% to 97,344, UK Finance said.

Purchase scams, romance scams, investment scams and impersonation scams all decreased.

In total, £126.7 million of APP losses was returned to victims – representing 59% of the total loss.

New reimbursement rules from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) came into effect on October 7, which make reimbursement for APP scams mandatory. Previously, many banks had signed up to a voluntary code, with some having their own reimbursement policies.

Victims of unauthorised fraud cases – where money has been taken without the account holder’s knowledge – are legally protected against losses and UK Finance research indicates that customers are fully refunded in more than 98% of these fraud cases.

“There have been some improvements made by other sectors, but their actions don’t yet fully match the scale of the problem – more needs to be done to prevent fraudsters exploiting these platforms and networks.

“Earlier this month we saw the introduction of new APP reimbursement rules for customers and, while reimbursement is important in the fight against fraud, it can only be part of the solution. On its own it does nothing to prevent or reduce the psychological harms to victims, nor does it prevent organised crime groups from stealing money.

“That is why the financial services industry is always focused on preventing fraud happening in the first place.”

“We’re pleased that all UK households now have a higher standard of fraud refund protection, but we must continue to see action from other sectors to cut scam content off at source.”

Jim Winters, head of economic crime at Nationwide Building Society, said: “Fraud can have devastating effects and, while it’s encouraging to see strong prevention figures, more must be done to stop fraud and scams at the source.”

He added: “We are calling for collaboration with big tech, social media, telecoms, government and law enforcement to share information and data to break the chain and stop fraud and scams at the outset.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Fraud is the most common crime in this country and the Government are determined to do more to tackle it.

“Ministers are looking at how we can improve our approach across Government, working with law enforcement and industry to better protect people and businesses from this appalling crime.

“We remain particularly concerned about the continuing high losses from APP fraud, and the new Government has made clear it intends to work with both the finance industry and technology companies to ensure the improved prevention, detection and punishment of this pernicious crime.”