UK Finance has today releases its latest fraud report covering 2021.
The report shows the scale of fraud taking place as well as how criminals took advantage of people’s doubts and fears during the pandemic to commit fraud, often by exploiting weaknesses outside of the banking system.
A total of over £1.3 billion was stolen through fraud and scams in 2021: unauthorised fraud was £730.4 million and authorised push payment (APP) fraud was £583.2 million, with nearly 40 per cent of APP losses due to impersonation scams.
The banking and finance industry prevented a further £1.4 billion of unauthorised fraud from getting into the hands of criminals.
The report found that in 2021, criminals impersonated a range of organisations such as the NHS, banks and government departments via phone calls, text messages, emails, fake websites and social media posts to trick people into handing over their personal and financial information. They subsequently used this information to convince people into authorising a payment.
There were 195,996 incidents of APP scams in 2021 with gross losses of £583.2 million, including:
£214.8 million lost to impersonation scams, whereby criminals impersonate a range of organisations to trick people into giving away their personal and financial information. This was the largest category of APP losses.
£171.7 million lost to investment scams, the second largest category of APP losses.
99,733 cases of purchase scams, which means this was the most common type of scam – accounting for 51 per cent of all cases – although total losses were £64.1 million.
A total of £271.2 million of losses were returned to victims of APP scams, accounting for 47 per cent of losses.
Katy Worobec, managing director of Economic Crime at UK Finance, said:
Fraud has a devastating impact on victims and the money stolen funds serious organised crime, as well as imposing significant costs on the wider economy.
“Unauthorised fraud losses fell last year, but this type of criminal activity remains a major problem. Through the introduction of new measures such as strong customer authentication, coupled with continued investment in technology, the banking and finance industry prevents significant amounts of fraud from taking place.
“Authorised fraud losses rose again this year as criminals targeted people through a variety of sophisticated scams, with much of the criminal activity taking place outside the banking sector, often involving online and technology platforms. This is why we continue to call for other sectors to play a greater role in helping protect customers from the scourge of fraud.
“The upcoming Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill is an important development and provides the opportunity for the government to give new powers on information sharing and tracking stolen money. These are things we have long called for and will support efforts to work together and stop the fraud happening in the first place.
