By Abbas Panjwani, Greg Oxley, William Downs
Criminals successfully stole £1.2 billion from individuals through banking fraud and scams in 2023 according to industry figures. 1 Fraud accounted for over 40% of crimes against individuals in England and Wales in 2024. And the government has said the total impact of fraud when counting things like emotional harm and investigatory costs is over double that of the direct losses from fraud. Despite the prevalence of fraud and the public costs, the government and police approach to fraud in recent years has been criticised for failing to take the crime seriously. For example, in the year ending March 2024, only around 2% of fraud offences recorded by police were referred to territorial forces for investigation. In 2023 the government published its fraud strategy which included a range of measures to stop fraud happening in the first place, pursue fraudsters when they are successful, and help victims. Some of the main initiatives include establishing a National Fraud Squad of specialist investigators, overhauling the fraud reporting system and requiring payment service providers to reimburse victims of authorised payment fraud. The nature and scale of banking fraud Industry body UK Finance estimates that criminals successfully stole £1.17 billion through banking fraud and scams in 2023. Of this £709 million was unauthorised and £460 million was authorised, levels which have remained broadly flat since 2021. Unauthorised fraud is where the fraudulent transaction is carried out by a third party, not the victim. Authorised fraud involves the victim being tricked into paying money into another account that is controlled by a criminal. This is also known as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. Payment providers almost always reimburse victims of unauthorised fraud. For APP fraud, in 2023 62% of losses were reimbursed, a figure which has increased over time. From October 2024, payment providers are required by law to reimburse APP victims, subject to some conditions.
London: House of Commons Library, 2025. 32p.