Wednesday 1 Jul 2026, 10:38

UK Finance responds to Frontier Economics' report on first year of Payment Systems Regulator's mandatory reimbursement scheme

Ruth Ray, Managing Director of Economic Crime at UK Finance, said:

“Fraud operates on an industrial scale, causing serious harm to consumers and businesses. For certain scams, particularly investment and romance fraud, victims may only realise they have been deceived a long time after the transaction has taken place. Transaction-date data alone will therefore give an incomplete picture of fraud.

"Only the banking sector reimburses victims, but this is not stopping fraud and it’s clear the underlying problem is still not being tackled effectively. Most scams originate online or through telecoms channels and these sectors need to take much greater responsibility for safeguarding consumers and stopping fraud.”

Contact Information

UK Finance Press Office
020 7416 6750
press@ukfinance.org.uk

Notes to editors

Frontier Economics’ report states that there was a £73 million reduction in APP fraud in the year following the introduction of mandatory reimbursement compared with April – December 2023. However, UK Finance’s annual fraud report 2026 found that authorised push payment (APP) fraud increased by 19 per cent in 2025 compared to the previous year.
This discrepancy reflects the differences in the way the data was collected. Frontier Economics collected fraud data by the date the scam transaction was made rather than the date the claim was closed by the payment service provider (PSP) – the standard approach used by UK Finance and the Payment Systems Regulator.
Frontier Economics’ report will under-report fraud types where there are typically long lags between the victim realising they have been defrauded and reporting it to their PSP, such as romance and investment scams, which UK Finance’s annual fraud report 2026 shows are increasing significantly. Some scams can last months or even years, and include several transactions, before a victim realises they have been deceived. On average, victims of romance scams can make 9.7 payments before they realise they have been a victim of fraud.
While the mandatory reimbursement scheme has led to more APP fraud victims getting their money back, being reimbursed does not mean that the psychological harm attached to being a victim of a scam goes away.
UK Finance data includes fraud that is beyond the scope of the mandatory reimbursement scheme, including business and international payments.
The PSR sets out that their data is different to UK Finance data.

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