Which? Response to the PSR’s announcement ahead of the anniversary of Which?’s Super Complaint on bank transfer scams

Gareth Shaw, Which? Money Expert said:

“A year on from our Super Complaint, consumers have continued to remain at risk from bank transfer fraud with many people losing life-changing sums of money to scammers.

“The regulator must now clearly set out what progress has been made by banks, and what more they must do to ensure consumers who are tricked into making a payment to a fraudster are not left out of pocket.

“Data sharing between banks and best practice standards must be agreed and adopted across the industry to make sure consumers are protected.”

Which? wants to see clear progress on a number of measures including:

· Robust guidelines for financial institutions to support victims of scams and the adoption of a best practice approach across industry.
· Banks to demonstrate how they will enhance data sharing to improve their response to bank transfer scams.
· An update on the progress of Confirmation of Payee and a commitment to implement it swiftly.
· A proposal to ensure consumers are not left out of pocket when they fall victim to a bank transfer scam.

Key figures:

· Which? research indicates that the overall scams figure of losses is likely to be huge – in the first two weeks after launching its online scams reporting tool in November 2016, more than 650 people told Which? about losing over £5.5 million to bank transfer scams.

· A Which? survey revealed that four in ten (40%) people believe that financial fraud and scams should also be one of the top three consumer priority issues for Government.

· Of those people who had lost money to bank transfer scams, more than half (54%) had been victims in the last six months.

· Nearly four in 10 (37%) say they didn’t receive any money back at all.

Notes to editors

Which?’s Super Complaint: September 23 2016 can be found here: https://www.which.co.uk/policy/money/349/payment-method-surcharges-which-super-complaint

Nearly half (40%) of people believe that addressing financial fraud and scams should be among the top three consumer issues, that should be prioritised by the Government (Which? research, September 2017)
Scams research: Populus, on behalf on Which? spoke to 2,117 nationally representative UK adults via an online poll between the 3rd and 4th May 2017.
Priorities for Government research: Populus, on behalf on Which? spoke to 2,130 nationally representative UK adults via an online poll between the 19th and 20th April 2017. Respondents were asked to select up to three consumer issues they believe the Government should prioritise next, out of a prompted list of ten issues.
Which? Consumer Agenda for Government: Which?’s ‘Consumer Agenda for Government’ was published on Saturday 29th April and is available here: www.which.co.uk/consumeragenda

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