The UK’s biggest banks have joined forces with leading technology companies to counter fraud and protect consumers, build confidence, and drive UK economic growth.
The unlikely alliance sees rivals come together under the banner of Stop Scams UK, with HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Barclays, Monzo, and Santander signing a joint statement to support intelligence sharing pilots, alongside BT and Three, as well as tech giants Amazon, Google, Meta, and Match Group.
By signing the joint statement, the firms are all pledging to invest in finance, data, and technology to create a mutually beneficial ecosystem that will lead to the wider dissemination of data.
Stop Scams UK chair Ruth Evans said: “Through our pilot work to share fraud data between industry sectors, we have proved that collaboration gets ahead of the criminals and defeats fraudsters.
“By making this pledge, our members are redoubling their efforts to create a safer environment for all businesses and consumers online.”
The joint statement emphasises that now is the moment for companies to ‘accelerate, build and scale’ their fight against fraud, which, according to UK Government figures, now accounts for 41% of all estimated crime in England and Wales.
The pledge builds on work already begun by the likes of Meta, which announced in October that it was entering an information-sharing partnership with UK banks in a ‘first of its kind’ initiative to help combat the rising tide of fraud across its social media platforms.
According to Meta, the partnership led to action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, with approximately 20,000 accounts removed based on data shared.
Commenting on the signing of this new pledge, Meta global head of counter fraud Nathaniel Gleicher said: “At Meta, we are committed to creating a safe and secure online environment for all our community.
“Scams are a society-wide problem which requires industry, government and others to work together, and we will continue to expand and evolve our collaboration to stop fraudsters in their tracks.”
Stop Scams UK’s initiative is the latest call for wider industry collaboration, following a coalition led by consumer group Which? last August, that brought together UK banks and telecoms providers in a landmark commitment to share data to combat fraud.
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