30 per cent of UK adults are worried that warning notices put up during the payment process could be a method for banks to shift the responsibility for getting scammed towards customers, according to a new study.

Research shared with FStech, conducted by anti-fraud FinTech Tunic Pay and market research consultancy Opinium, found that less than a third – 32 per cent – of UK consumers aged 18 and over think that bank scam warnings are helpful because they force them to slow down and think about the payment they are making.

The report, which surveyed 2,000 UK adults between 18 and 21 October this year, also revealed that just one in three Brits read their bank’s warning statements before making instant bank transfers.

According to the research, while customers of digital or challenger banks are less likely to read every warning notice than customers of traditional High Street banks, interestingly they are marginally more likely to say that warning notices are effective.

The figures come a month after the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) introduced its mandatory reimbursement scheme.

The new rules require all UK banks, building societies, payments and e-money firms to reimburse victims of APP fraud up to £85,000.

The vast majority of consumers can expect to be reimbursed within five business days of making a claim, with the scheme seeing more than 99 per cent of claims by volume covered.

“The PSR’s important new rules have placed more financial burden on banks than ever before to get a handle on the potentially £4 billion problem of APP fraud," said Nico Barawid, co-founder of Tunic Pay. "The banks have channelled huge amounts of money and effort into creating friction to slow down payments and get customers thinking harder about who they’re sending their money to.

"Is the friction working? Not a lot. If two in three people aren’t paying attention to the warnings they click through, the system is broken and the fraudsters win."

The PSR expects that its new reimbursement rules will push banks and payment service providers (PSPs) to “innovate” and develop “data-driven interventions” to change customer behaviour, which could include introducing a risk-based approach to payments.

Financial institutions that come under the regulator's initiative have already started exploring new ways to prevent APP fraud, with the GSM Association (GSMA) and UK Finance announcing earlier this week that some of the UK’s top banks and mobile network operators have joined forces to launch a new tool designed to address the issue.

Scam Signal is launching as a collaboration between EE, Virgin Media O2, Three, Vodafone and UK Finance members, including NatWest.

Scam Signal, which is facilitated by an API, allows banks to better identify and stop fraudulent bank transfers by analysing real-time network data and identifying correlations between phone calls and fraudulent bank transfers.

Data from UK Finance shows that £213.7 million was lost to APP fraud in the first half of 2024, with 35 per cent of losses originating from scams which started through telecommunication.

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