Brits lost £572m to fraud in the first half of 2024 – but warnings from banks are starting to turn the tide on ‘authorised’ fraud

Criminals stole £571.7 million in the first half of 2024, new figures from UK Finance show.

While still a staggering figure, it represents a 1.5 percent drop in the amount of money lost to criminals compared to the first half of 2023.

This was pushed down by a decline in the number of authorized frauds – also known as Authorized Push Payments or APP fraud – with the number of cases falling for the first time since the second half of 2021.

APP fraud occurs when someone is tricked into depositing money into a scammer’s account or handing over a password.

In other words, they take an action or voluntarily provide information that enables the fraud.

While the amount of money stolen by fraudsters fell overall in the first six months of the year, the number of cases unfortunately rose by 16 percent to 1.6 million.

Is the tide turning in authorized push payments?

UK Finance divides fraud into two categories: authorized and unauthorized (more on this below).

APP fraud has decreased compared to the first half of 2023, both in the number of cases and the amount of money stolen. This reduced the overall fraud loss rate for the first half of 2024.

Criminals have stolen £213.7 million from Britons in this way, a fall of 11 percent compared to the first half of last year.

The decline in APP fraud has been helped by banks, which have gone out of their way to alert customers when they see an uptick in certain types of scams, including AI voice impersonation scams and CEO scams.

According to UK Finance, banks have prevented £710.9 million worth of unauthorized fraud through advanced security systems.

The total number of APP cases fell by 16 percent to 97,344, with cases falling across all APP fraud categories, UK Finance reported.

The number of APP cases has been on an upward trend since the second half of 2021, when 94,456 cases of APP fraud were recorded. Since then they have risen year on year and this is the first time they have fallen since then.

The number of purchasing fraud, in which a victim pays in advance for goods or services that are never received, decreased by 11 percent.

Romance scams, where victims are tricked into believing they are in a relationship, fell by seven percent and investment fraud cases also fell by 29 percent.

A total of £14.5 million was lost to romance scams from January to June 2024, a drop of 21 per cent compared to the same period in 2023.

The number of fraud cases where criminals pretend to be a bank or the police and convince someone to transfer money fell by 32 percent and the amount lost to this type of fraud fell by 26 percent.

A total of £18.8 million was lost to these types of scams in the first six months of 2024, a drop of 42 percent compared to 2023.

“It is encouraging to see declines in certain fraud categories, particularly APP, largely due to strong investment by banks combined with industry collaboration and education programs,” said Dan Holmes, director of bank fraud, identity and market strategy at fraud detection company Feedzai.

Unauthorized fraud losses are still raging

Unauthorized fraud – which does not directly involve victims, for example purchases made with stolen credit card details – increased in both case numbers and amount lost in the first half of 2024.

Losses from unauthorized transactions using payment cards, remote banking and checks amounted to £358 million in the first half of this year, an increase of five percent compared to the first half of 2023.

The total number of cases was just over 1.5 million, an increase of 19 percent compared to the same period last year.

UK Finance said one of the main reasons for the increase in payment card fraud losses was a 26 percent increase in card-not-present cases. This occurs when a transaction is made over the phone or online using stolen card details.

Criminals can buy millions of stolen credit card details on the dark web, use them for purchases and sell them in bundles to other criminals.

There has also been a spike in criminals stealing mobile phones to access their victims’ banking apps and take money.

Victims of unauthorized fraud cases like this are legally protected from losses, and customers are fully refunded in more than 98 percent of these fraud cases, according to UK Finance.

On October 7, 2024, rules introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator were passed into law forcing banks to compensate victims of APP fraud up to £85,000 within five days, after the original limit of £415,000 was watered down.

Ben Donaldson, director of economic crime at UK Finance, said: ‘While reimbursement is important in the fight against fraud, it can only be part of the solution.

“On its own, it does nothing to prevent or reduce psychological harm to victims, nor does it prevent organized crime groups from stealing money.”

Commenting on the data, Nicola Bannister, customer support director at TSB, said: ‘While banks are helping to reduce fraud losses, with a notable reduction in push payment fraud, far too many consumers are still dealing with the devastating impact of scams that arise from online companies and telephone companies.’

Stephen White, Chief Operating Officer at Santander UK said: ‘With more than 70 per cent of APP fraud coming from online platforms and 16 per cent via telecommunications networks, we need to focus our efforts on protecting consumers, and to do that we need we urgently need collaboration across sectors – including banks, technology companies, telecoms and government – ​​to create meaningful change.”