The Co-operative Bank is launching a free fraud awareness webinar to help small businesses protect themselves from fraud.

The information session will feature members of its fraud and cyber security team, as well as experts from Greater Manchester Police and the Federation of Small Business.

The initiative is aimed at helping employees spot incidents of fraud and cyber crime, which last year cost UK businesses £824 million.

As fraud and cyber crime is on the rise, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Co-operative Bank wants to aid members of the small business community to recognise scams and take actions and steps to help protect themselves.

The online session is being run in partnership with the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and will take place on 8 July at 11am.

For those that cannot make the session it will be recorded and available via the Co-operative Bank website afterwards.

Sarah Barker, relationship banking director at The Co-operative Bank, said: "This is such a challenging time for the small business community and when so many are still weathering the impacts of the Coronavirus outbreak the additional impacts of a fraud, scam or cyber attack at this time could have a significantly greater impact on a small business than ever before.

"There is a constant need to be vigilant for scams and frauds but with so much to consider and work though for small businesses as many are now re-opening and recommencing operations, opportunistic criminals could try to take advantage.”

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