UK Banks Agree to Improve Data-Sharing in Anti-Fraud Battle

British banks, tech companies and telecoms are reportedly pledging to increase their data-sharing on fraud.

This pledge, as the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (March 31), comes as the U.K. government is facing calls to show more leadership in helping fight online scammers.

According to the report, the companies behind the pledge have transitioned from a testing phase to begin real-time exchanges of fraud indication data — unusual transactions, suspicious URLs — to detect scammers faster.

Among the banks involved are Barclays, HSBC, Santander and Lloyds, joined by tech giants such as Amazon, Meta and Google and telecom firms BT and Three.

The report cites data from the U.K, Office for National Statistics showing that fraud accounts for 41% of offenses in England and Wales, costing an estimated $8.8 billion per year.

“By making this pledge, our members are redoubling their efforts to create a safer environment for all businesses and consumers online,” said Ruth Evans, chair of Stop Scams UK, the group behind the initiative.

The group tried a data-sharing pilot in 2023, though the amount of information shared had been “negligible,” chief executive Mark Tierney told the FT.

The program has since changed “exponentially,” he added, crediting the introduction of an automated system that could transfer “tens of thousands” of data points a day between the three sectors.

The FT notes that this effort is separate from Meta’s data-sharing accord with NatWest and Metro Bank that has helped the social platform remove 20,000 scam accounts.

It is happening at a time when scams against banks and their customers have exploded, as PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

“Fraudsters pull at human nature in a bid to gain access to accounts and drain them — pleading through texts, phone calls and artificial intelligence (AI) prompts for donations, romance, bail to get out of jail and more,” that report said.

“Scammers are industrious, becoming more businesslike, moving beyond blast emails toward a personalized approach as they pick their victims.”

Research found in the PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Impact of Financial Scams on Consumers’ Finances and Banking Habits” shows that there are two types of scams that cause more financial damage than average.

These are investment scams, which carry a median loss of $1,104, and romance scams (median loss of $1,996). In addition, romance scams also string victims along for an average of 3.6 transactions, which is nearly double the number of transactions involved in other methods.