Meta expands partnership with UK banks to help fight fraud 'epidemic'

Meta has unveiled plans to broaden a collaborative initiative that involves banks sharing intelligence with the tech giant to bolster defences against fraud.

Initially partnering with NatWest and Metro Bank, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is set to extend the programme, welcoming more financial institutions on board. The scheme, known as the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (Fire), enables banks to directly provide Meta with information to thwart scam attempts.

During its pilot phase, Fire played a pivotal role in dismantling a major scam network focused on concert ticket fraud in the US and UK, leading to the removal of approximately 20,000 scammer-controlled accounts linked to 185 URLs. This collaboration has also enhanced Meta's ability to detect fraudulent activities.

"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," stated Nathaniel Gleicher, Meta’s head of counter-fraud. "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."

Mark Tierney, chief executive of Stop Scams UK, said: "We’re delighted to see some of our member banks join Meta’s Fire initiative in another positive example of cross-sector collaboration. We believe Fire could become a gamechanger for reporting fraudulent content, helping protect consumers and ensuring both banks and Meta gain better visibility of the abuse carried out on their systems by scammers."

"Stop Scams UK passionately believes that collaborative projects such as Fire can lead to wider data sharing and improve reporting which is key to successfully tackling scams."

Rocio Concha, the director of policy and advocacy at consumer champion Which?, commended the initiative but stressed the need for continued efforts: "While it’s a positive step that Meta is partnering with UK banks to combat scams, much greater collaboration between key businesses and government is needed to put an end to the fraud epidemic," she said.

"Until now, the government and businesses such as online platforms, banks and telecoms firms have largely operated in silos and do not share the data they have on how these fraudsters operate – making it much harder to stop scams reaching victims in the first place."

"To tackle fraud, the Government should lead a more coordinated approach by encouraging sectors to share data and stop scams spreading. New duties, equivalent to the obligations being introduced for banks and online platforms, should be placed on telecom providers, online advertising providers and domain registrars to ensure they verify the legitimacy of users."