Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK)*, who are responsible for leading the collective fight against fraud in the UK payments industry, reported today that in 2015 gross fraud** increased by 26% to £775m with the financial fraud losses by type shown below:

Source & Copyright©2016 - FFA UK. 

Good news

There was some good news: Prevented fraud totalled £1.76 billion in 2015 which was more than twice the gross fraud losses. This represents incidents that were detected and prevented by the banks and card companies and is equivalent to £7 in every £10 of attempted fraud being stopped.

Fraud sources in UK

Other important stats on fraud sources in the FFA UK year end report include:

• main sources of card fraud were remote purchase (70%) and lost & stolen (13%)
• telephone banking fraud rose by 92% to £32.5m
• overall remote banking loses increased by 72% due to impersonation and deception scams; however, fraud prevention stopped £8 out of very £10 attempted fraud
• cheque fraud decreased by 6% to its lowest ever level

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*Membership includes major banks, credit, debit and charge card issuers, and card payment acquirers.

** These represent the value of fraud including any funds subsequently recovered by a bank.

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CTMfile take: Would general availability of secure digital identities have prevented these horrifying increases in remote banking/telephone banking fraud losses and in the level of remote banking fraud attempted? Probably? Maybe? Not?