GBP 616 mln stolen in UK bank accounts scams in six months

As per UK Finance, GBP 408 million was stolen by criminals through 1,385,447 cases of unauthorised card, remote banking, and cheque fraud in the first six months of 2019. As such, losses from unauthorised transactions on payment cards increased 2% to GBP 313 million, and cheque fraud losses rose to GBP 29 million. Unauthorised remote banking fraud dropped 28% to GBP 66 million.

Moreover, GBP 208 million was lost to authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where customers are tricked into authorising a payment to an account controlled by a criminal. This was split between personal and business accounts, with 53,475 personal cases resulting in losses of GBP 147 million, and 4,074 non-personal cases resulting in losses of GBP 61 million.

Investment scams are the most significant type of fraud among personal customers, with GBP 41 million lost to these schemes, or over GBP 12,200 per case. Purchase scams remain the most prevalent form of APP fraud, accounting for almost 65% of all cases targeting personal customers. However, the finance industry stopped GBP 820 million of unauthorised fraud in H1 of 2019.