Latest FCA speech on fraud prevention measures

Andrea Bowe, director of the specialist directorate at the FCA, recently delivered a speech at the Westminster Legal Policy Forum Keynote Seminar in which she raised a number of the challenges facing the financial services industry to tackle fraud.   

Key points of interest

At the outset, Ms Bowe highlighted that whilst the scale of the issue should not be underestimated (£1.17bn was paid to scams last year), recent statistics indicate that the dial in the global fight against fraud may be shifting. According to UK Finance, there has been a four percent decrease in total losses from payment fraud in the last year. If this is indeed part of a longer-term trend, however, Ms Bowe noted that sustaining this movement will remain difficult given the speed at which new forms of fraud and related technologies are continuing to emerge.

To overcome this challenge, Ms Bowe stressed the importance of:

• Collaboration and collective effort in sharing ideas, guidance, data and intelligence including:
  • working more closely with industry, such as greater transparency in relation to developing threats and working jointly with industry to tackle them;
  • partnerships with other regulators and law enforcement bodies, such as the three-day investment fraud tech sprint the jointly hosted with the NCA in 2023, as well as other similar events for payment providers in cooperation with the PSR and the Corporation of the City of London; and
  • sharing of information to disrupt criminal operations, such as information in relation to suspected money mule activity (and the importance of acting swiftly on receipt of such information, using both internal and external channels where necessary).
• Technological innovation following the rise in AI-driven cyber and identify fraud, including deepfake scams.
• Ensuring that policy and powers continue to keep pace with evolving financial crime risks.
• An open dialogue with the government regarding the powers it needs to best protect consumers and market integrity.

Any questions?

If you would like to discuss the issues discussed in the FCA's speech in more detail, or any other fraud-related issues your organisation is facing, please get in touch with a member of our Fraud team.