A new report by industry trade association UK Finance has revealed that the banking industry has foiled a total of £1.66bn of unauthorised fraud in 2018.
In its Fraud the Facts 2019 report, UK Finance stated that around £1.12bn in attempted unauthorised card frauds were prevented last year.
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The financial institutions also thwarted £318m in attempted unauthorised remote banking fraud and £218m in attempted unauthorised cheque fraud.
However, scammers stole a total of £1.2bn last year, a surge of almost 24% from £968m in 2017.
The surge is primarily attributed to the theft of personal financial information through data breaches. The compromised stolen data was used to commit direct and indirect frauds.
Overall, the criminals stole £354m in authorised fraud and £845m in unauthorised fraud.
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By GlobalDataUnauthorised fraud refers to the transactions carried out by a third-party without the authorisation of the account holders.
In authorised frauds, the account holders are scammed to authorise a payment to the account controlled by a criminal.
UK Finance managing director of Economic Crime Katy Worobec said: “Last month, the finance industry and consumer groups agreed a voluntary Code which will increase protection for customers from authorised push payment scams.
“It delivers a significant commitment from signatories to reimburse victims when the customer has met the standards expected of them under the Code.”
