Calls for big tech and social media firms to join the fight against fraud seem to have been responded to, at least in one instance. Social media giant Meta has announced that it has expanded an information-sharing partnership with two leading UK retail banks.
NatWest Group and Metro Bank have been working with Meta on an information-sharing fraud-prevention initiative, the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE). The platform, piloted for six months, will allow banks to share intelligence directly with Meta.
The social media firm will subsequently use this data to, in its words and those of the banks, stop scammers and protect users. NatWest and Metro are the first to join the pilot, but a joint statement adds that more are scheduled to join.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Global Head of Counter-Fraud at Meta, said: “This work has already seen us take action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, indicating the importance of banks and platforms working together to tackle this societal issue.
“We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams. Financial institutions can share unique information with us which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally.”
Meta is one of the world’s largest social media companies, the operator of the widely used Facebook and Instagram platforms and the WhatsApp messaging service. These platforms, particularly Facebook, are often cited by banks as being used by fraudsters to perpetuate their crimes.
TSB warned its users earlier this year about the prevalence of scams on Facebook Marketplace, asserting that around one-third of adverts on the site are false. Barclays has also carried out research, suggesting that 61% of investment scams are carried out on social media.
Much of this discussion has come in the context of incoming rules around authorised push payment fraud (APP fraud) reimbursement in the UK. From next Monday (7 October), banks will be required to reimburse victims of APP fraud up to £85,000.
Due to the prevalence of fraud on social media platforms, banks have been arguing that the big tech firms behind these platforms – such as Meta, Google and X, though banks haven’t singled anyone out by name – should share this reimbursement responsibility.
Meta’s expansion of its information-sharing programme has unsurprisingly received a positive reception from the banking sector. The National Economic Crime Centre and the City of London Police have also responded positively.
“Spotting and stopping fraudsters before they are able to target customers is the best way to address this growing problem,” said David Lindberg, CEO of Retail Banking, NatWest.
“Partnering with Meta is an important step in tackling the epidemic of fraud. We welcome the opportunity to deepen our collaboration and ensure a cross-industry approach to fraud prevention and enforcement.”
Meta, NatWest and Metro Bank have already detailed a successful outcome from the partnership. The trio state that data shared during the six month pilot removed around 20,0000 scam accounts from 183 URLs.
Faisal Hussain, Chief Operating Officer at Metro Bank, commented: “Scams are an industry-wide problem which require industry-wide solutions. We’ve been inspired by our work with Meta as an example of how we can all work together to protect consumers from faceless online fraudsters.
“Through sharing this information, we hope to significantly improve scam detection and enforcement, ultimately creating a safer digital environment for everyone.”
