Fraud in the UK continues to escalate at pace, testing the resilience of consumers, banks and digital platforms alike. UK Finance’s latest half-year figures paint a sobering picture: more than £629 million was stolen in the first six months of 2025, a three percent rise on the same period last year. Fraud cases surged to over two million, reflecting a seventeen per cent increase and signalling an environment where criminals innovate faster than traditional controls can keep up.
Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams remain one of the most damaging areas, climbing to £257.5m, up 12% year-on-year. Much of this increase was driven by investment fraud, which saw losses rise by an alarming 55%. Crucially, two-thirds of APP fraud cases originated online, demonstrating where scams are born and where protections must be strengthened.

Against this backdrop, banks face mounting pressure to deliver frictionless digital experiences while simultaneously strengthening controls. Consumers want immediacy, personalisation and seamless journeys, yet they also expect absolute security. Delivering on both expectations of speed and safety has become one of the most complex balancing acts in modern financial services.

This tension is now playing out in real time. Instant payments and swift onboarding have become the standard. However, speed benefits everyone – including organised criminal networks that exploit real-time environments and social platforms to manipulate victims long before any transfer reaches a bank. When scams originate upstream, financial institutions become the final, and often only line of defence, asked to solve a problem that began far outside their perimeter.

Security vs experience is a false choice

The fraud landscape demands a new mindset. Consumers do not want to choose between convenience and protection – and they shouldn’t have to. Instead, the goal must be security that feels seamless, where intelligent friction only appears at genuine points of risk, and where prevention happens earlier in the digital journey.

The data underscores this need. The Home Office reports that more than half of UK adults are worried about online fraud, yet many victims do not know how they were targeted or how to report scams. Digital fluency does not always translate to fraud-awareness, and confidence is particularly low among younger users. Research from the UK Safer Internet Centre shows that nearly half of 8- to 17-year-olds have been scammed online, with one in ten losing money – proof that we are preparing young people to participate in digital life, but not to defend themselves within it. As digital life and financial health increasingly converge, the UK government’s decision to make financial literacy compulsory in all primary and secondary schools by 2028 is a welcome step change. Building financial literacy alongside online safety education will help create a financially resilient generation, subsequently reducing fraud victimisation and perpetration over the long term.

Banks are investing heavily – preventing £870m in unauthorised fraud in six months thanks to advanced security systems and real-time monitoring. But the model of placing primary responsibility at the point of payment is increasingly unsustainable. The future lies in collaboration across the digital ecosystem, not in expecting banks to absorb every risk individually.

Policy momentum is shifting responsibility upstream

The UK’s regulatory direction reflects this evolution. The Online Safety Act marks a pivotal shift, requiring platforms to identify and mitigate illegal activity, including fraud. Side-by-side with this, the Online Fraud Charter commits major technology firms to take proactive anti-fraud steps ahead of enforcement. Together, they move the debate from “who refunds fraud victims” to “who prevents fraud in the first place.”

This alignment matters particularly for young people, who are increasingly targeted not only as victims but as money mules. Banks, including Barclays and Santander have reported steep increases in youth mule recruitment, often linked to social platforms and influencer-style scams. The Act’s focus on risk assessment, scam-content removal, and reporting pathways, combined with voluntary early action through the Charter, creates a foundation for better upstream protection where young people are most active.

Collaboration is the new competitive advantage

Stopping fraud cannot rely on any single institution or industry. Banks, telcos, social media companies, fintech platforms and regulators must move beyond fragmented fixes and commit to real-time intelligence sharing, joint technology investment and shared accountability. The direction of travel is clear: the institutions that lead on collaboration will lead on trust.

A safer digital economy is not built by choosing between seamless journeys and strong controls – it is built by embedding smart security into those journeys from the start. When done well, security becomes invisible, proactive and confidence-enhancing rather than restrictive. It protects people before they reach a moment of vulnerability, not only after.

The UK has both the regulatory momentum and technological capability to redefine how a modern economy tackles fraud, through education, upstream platform responsibility and an ecosystem-wide commitment to prevention. The question now is execution.

As fraud continues to evolve, our approach to combating it must also evolve. Experience and security are not competing priorities; they are interdependent pillars of a trustworthy digital system. And the sooner we recognise that, the sooner we move from reacting to fraud to getting ahead of it.

Thara Brooks, Market Specialist – Fraud, Financial Crime & Compliance, FIS