UK payment fraud reaches £1.28bn; social media blamed

UK Finance reported that criminals stole £1.28bn from UK customers through payment fraud last year, a 4% increase from the previous year.

The industry body said authorised push payment (APP) fraud accounted for £576m of the losses, up 19%, and that APP incidents rose 7% to more than 280,000. UK Finance reported that 66% of APP losses originated on social media platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, Instagram and TikTok. Data from the Payment Systems Regulator show banks refunded 88% of customers who fell victim to APP scams, totaling £173m.

Losses from remote purchase card fraud rose 3% to £423.5m. Remote banking fraud losses fell 27% to £104.4m, while the number of remote banking incidents increased 11% to over 37,000, driven by a 21% rise in mobile banking cases. Contactless card fraud losses increased 8% to £46.8m.

UK Finance warned that artificial intelligence (AI) is helping criminals make scams more convincing and easier to run. Ruth Ray, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, warned that AI “lowers the barrier to entry for criminals to make their scams more sophisticated” and increases the risk that people will click malicious links or content.

UK Finance noted banks use AI, behavioural analytics and quantum analytics and are investing billions of pounds in resources to detect and block scams.

The industry body called for stronger, enforceable responsibilities for social media firms and asked platforms to provide financial contributions to public-private data-sharing partnerships that identify and stop fraud. UK Finance warned that without meaningful contributions from platforms, banks will continue to lead those partnerships.

In April 2025, banks and tech firms joined Stop Scams UK intelligence-sharing pilots to improve visibility of attacks targeting customers on online platforms. Participants included HSBC, NatWest and Santander along with tech and telecom companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Three, BT, Monzo and Lloyds.

UK Finance called for coordinated action across finance, technology and telecoms to address the scale and sophistication of payment fraud.