“The amount of money lost to victims of authorised push payments fraud in the UK rose to £479 million in 2020, as criminals used the Covid-19 pandemic to target people online. The APP fraud losses documented by UK Finance are up five per cent on the previous year, with the number of cases increasing by 22% to almost 150,000 in 2020.Banks were able to return £206.9 million of the losses from APP fraud to victims, over three quarters more than the sum returned in 2019.”

“In the pandemic, people have flocked to instant payment apps like Cash App, PayPal’s Venmo and Zelle as they have wanted to avoid retail bank branches and online commerce has become more ingrained. To encourage that shift, the payment apps have added services like debit cards and routing numbers so that they work more like traditional banks. But many people are unaware of how vulnerable they can be to losses when they use these services in place of banks. Payment apps have long had fraud rates that are three to four times higher than traditional payment methods such as credit and debit cards, according to data from the security firms Sift and Chargeback Gurus.”

“A central fraud pot used to pay back blameless bank transfer scam victims which was due to run out of money at the end of the year will now be funded until the end of March. Seven banks, which account for the vast majority of UK current account customers, agreed in May to cover a refund system which would reimburse victims of authorised push payment scams in instances where neither the victim nor the bank was to blame.”

“Proposals by seven UK banks to levy a per transaction fee for for certain Faster Payment transactions as a means to provide a long-term, sustainable funding arrangement for the reimbursement of APP scam victims, have been knocked back by governing body Pay.UK following an industry-wide consultation.”

“The amount of money stolen by criminals through bank transfer scams has risen by 40% in a year and is running at more than £1m a day, according to official UK data. Scammers stole £616m from UK bank customers during the first six months of 2019, according to banking body UK Finance . Of this total, £207.5m was lost to scams in which people were duped into authorising a payment to an account controlled by a criminal. This was up 40% on the £148.2m figure for the same period in 2018, although UK Finance said the year-on-year numbers were not directly comparable.”

“With UK Finance reporting a £92.9 million loss to consumers in the first half of 2018 as a result of Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams, the APP Scams Steering Group (the Steering Group) have published a draft voluntary code (the code). APP fraud is characterised by a transfer of funds executed across Faster Payments, CHAPS or an internal book transfer, authorised by a customer where they are either: deceived into transferring the funds to a different person, or where they believe they transferred funds for a legitimate purpose when it was, in fact fraudulent.”

“The suspension order, unveiled Wednesday evening, came after the HKMA found a number of customers had suffered a combined loss of HK$180,000, with most cases involving several thousands of dollars in losses, via the Faster Payment System. The biggest single amount was about HK$100,000, a spokeswoman said.”

“Fraudsters hack into emails between solicitors and their home-buying clients and then on the day the money is about to be moved, impersonate the solicitor and send the client an email saying the bank account details have changed and the payments should be made to a different account, created by the fraudster.”

“Cyber attackers attempted to penetrate Mexico’s electronic payment systems Friday, forcing three banks to enact contingency plans, according to people familiar with the matter. Three banks experienced “incidents” in recent days when operating the SPEI, Mexico’s interbank electronic transfer system, and will be connecting to the central bank’s network under “contingency schemes,” Banco de Mexico said in a statement Friday evening. That could cause delays in money transfers, according to the statement, which noted that the central bank’s SPEI infrastructure and client money haven’t been affected.”

“With PRO-TECH RT, account holders can establish parameters for incoming real-time payments and determine what conditions should prompt an alert. The alert, which can be sent via text, email or both, provides visibility on the status of the payment. Additionally, account holders can set up in advance an approved or blocked list based on factors such as payment amount, frequency, sender and start/end dates to automatically manage future payment decisions in real time.”