The UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has published an important report on The growing threat of online fraud (Sixth Report of Session 2017–19).The key observation is that Banks do not accept enough responsibility for preventing and reducing online fraud and there is no data available to assess how well individual banks are performing. Unless all banks start working together, including making better use of technology, there will be little progress on tackling card fraud and returning money to customers.
- One key issue is that unlike credit cards, where transactions are automatically refunded in case of dispute, payments made by customers via online banking on their instruction (“authorised push payments”), to a fraudulent destination is not. It has been estimated that between 40% and 70% of people who are victims of scams do not get any money back. Banks are reported to be holding at least £130 million of funds that cannot accurately be traced back and returned to fraud victims, an amount that UK Finance said was probably a conservative estimate.
- As the proportion of payments made by digital means continues to rise, stronger safeguards, and clearer account abilities should be placed on the banks. This is not a topic the banks want to discuss. Indeed, in evidence, individual banks know how they compare with others, but told the committee that banks did not publish individual numbers because then the fraudsters would target the ‘weakest’ of the banks. Of course, it might be in the banks’ own interest not to be transparent and publish individual data, as it could deter customers.
- They found card not present fraud was significant, and needed to be reduced.
- Finally, there was a need for better consumer awareness.
We suspect the situation in Australia is somewhat similar.
In summary, Online fraud is now the most prevalent crime in England and Wales, impacting victims not only financially but also causing untold distress to those affected. The cost of the crime is estimated at £10 billion, with around 2 million cyber-related fraud incidents last year, however the true extent of the problem remains unknown. Only around 20% of fraud is actually reported to police, with the emotional impact of the crime leaving many victims reluctant to come forward. The crime is indiscriminate, is growing rapidly and shows no signs of slowing down. Urgent action from government is needed, yet the Home Office’s response has been too slow and the banks are unwilling to share information about the extent of fraud with customers. The balance needs to be tipped in favour of the customer.
Online fraud is now too vast a problem for the Home Office to solve on its own, and it must work with a long list of other organisations including banks and retailers, however it remains the only body that can provide strategic national leadership. Setting up the Joint Fraud Task in 2016 was a positive step, but there is much still to do. The Department and its partners on the Joint Fraud Taskforce need to set clear objectives for what they plan to do, and by when, and need to be more transparent about their activities including putting information on the Home Office’s website.
The response from local police to fraud is inconsistent across England and Wales. The police must prioritise online fraud alongside efforts to tackle other sorts of crime. But it is vital that local forces get all the support they need to do this, including on identifying, developing and sharing good practice.
Banks are not doing enough to tackle online fraud and their response has not been proportionate to the scale of the problem. Banks need to take more responsibility and work together to tackle this problem head on. Banks now need to work on information sharing so that customers are offered more protection from scams. Campaigns to educate people and keep them safe online have so far been ineffective, supported by insufficient funds and resources. The Department must also ensure that banks are committed to developing more effective ways of tackling card not present fraud and that they are held to account for this and for returning money to customers who have been the victims of scams.
