13% year-on-year drop in fraud

And, while the report shows the end of the pandemic has seen a fall in overall fraud losses - dropping by 13% when compared to the same period in 2021 - some fraud types have increased as criminals continue to adapt their methods. 

The trade body also noted the drop was partially due to the first half of 2021 being an exceptionally high period for fraud, rather than the start of a downward trend. 

Of the more than £609m stolen through fraud and scams, unauthorised fraud losses were worth £360.8m and authorised push payment (APP) fraud losses were worth £249.1m. Additionally, it found the banking and finance industry prevented a further £583.9m of unauthorised fraud from getting into the hands of criminals. 

UK Finance’s managing director of economic crime Katy Worobec said: “As we have warned previously, the level of fraud in the UK is such that it must be considered a national security threat. 

“The industry is continuously focused on tackling the threat as we know criminals continue to find new ways to exploit potential victims.  However, criminal gangs simply bypass the advanced security measures banks have in place and instead directly target the customer, usually outside the confines of the banking system. 

“This is why it is key that other sectors work with us to fight fraud as it remains a persistent threat to businesses, consumers and the growth of the economy, not to mention the reputation of the UK as a place to do business.” 

Looking at the two types of fraud highlighted by UK Finance, unauthorised financial fraud losses across payment cards, remote banking and cheques totalled £360.8m - a decrease of nine percent when compared to the first half of 2021. 

As for APP fraud, the trade body says losses continued to be driven by the abuse of online platforms used by criminals to scam their victims. These include scams advertised on search engines and social media, as well as romance scams committed through online dating platforms and purchase scams promoted through auction websites. 

To conduct this, criminals used scam phone calls, text messages and emails, as well as fake websites and social media posts, to trick people into handing over personal details and passwords. This information was then used to convince people into authorising a payment. 

In total there were 95,219 incidents of APP scams in the first half of 2022 with gross losses of £249.1m, down 17% when compared to the same period in 2021. 

This includes £90.5m lost to impersonation scams - where criminals impersonate a range of organisations to trick people - and £61.2m to investment scams. In addition to this, there were 53,782 cases of purchases - which means this was the most common type of scam, accounting for 56% of all cases. 

Based on the APP scam figures, while there was an overall decrease, the amount returned to customers has increased - rising by 11% to £140.1m in the first half of 2022.