Santander has reported that over £18m was stolen from its UK customers through authorised push payment (APP) fraud in the first quarter of 2025.
This information comes from The Santander Quarterly Scamtracker, a report highlighting the impact and trends of APP fraud in the UK. The bank also noted a 13% decrease in the amount stolen compared to the same period last year (Q1 2024).
Despite the overall amount being down, Chris Ainsley, Head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander UK, noted that £18m is a “staggering amount to have been taken” from customers.
The bank found that purchase scams were among the most damaging types of fraud during the quarter, accounting for more than half of all claims. Within this category, concert ticket scams alone made up over 10% of cases.
Santander also warned of a growing trend in fake sportswear advertisements targeting well-known brands, often appearing on social media. This trend aligns with increasing calls from the payments industry for major social media platforms to be held more accountable for fraud that originates on their sites.
“Scams are evolving at breakneck speed, which can make staying on top of the new ones exceptionally hard for customers,” added Ainsley.
“Just this week we’ve seen the emergence of fake sportswear ads on Facebook leading to 450 customers being scammed out of their hard-earned money.”
Furthermore, impersonation scams and romance/friendship scams were among the fastest-growing types of fraud, despite Santander’s research showing that more than half of consumers are aware of these risks, with 63% recognising romance/friendship scams and 49% aware of impersonation scams.
Additionally, advance fee scams are also on the rise. However, Santander found that only 17% of customers are aware of this type of fraud, which is when a victim pays money expecting to receive something of greater value.
The oldest and youngest customers were the most affected by fraud, with those aged 80 and over experiencing the largest increase, up 7% from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, scams targeting customers aged 18-34 rose by 6%.
Ainsley concluded: “Providing customers with the information they need to protect themselves from these criminals is vital if we don’t want to see that £18m increase in the next Scamtracker stats.”
A collaborative effort
Santander was among several other banks, social media platforms and telecommunications companies to sign a joint statement last week. The statement pledged to improve how these companies share technology, data and intelligence, aiming to help the UK ‘get ahead of fraudsters’.
In addition to this initiative, Innovate Finance launched a strategic plan titled ‘‘A Technology Strategy to Smash Fraud”, which outlined the need for a National Anti-Fraud Centre, amendments to the Online Safety Act 2023 and investment in the technology sector.
While stakeholders in the payments industry were disappointed by the lack of focus on fraud in the government’s recent Spring Budget, there are signs that the industry is working collaboratively to tackle rising fraud rates.
