GSMA and UK Finance team up for API based anti-fraud initiative

Scam Signal is supposed to help address Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud in the UK, and is launching as a collaboration between UK operators EE, Virgin Media O2, Three, Vodafone, as well as UK Finance members such as NatWest.

Delivered via an API, it is designed to help banks better identify and stop fraudulent bank transfers by analysing real-time network data and identifying correlations between phone calls and fraudulent bank transfers.

£213.7 million was lost to APP fraud – described as where criminals manipulate customers into transferring money – in the first half of 2024, according to UK Finance, which represents more than 300 firms across the banking industry.

In terms of the value of losses, 35% of APP losses originated from scams which started through telecoms, such as criminals contact victims through SMS and phone calls often pretending to be from legitimate organisations such as banks.

Early development of Scam Signal was spearheaded by Vodafone, we’re told, which completed a three-month pilot project which resulted in scam detection improving by 30% at a major UK bank.

“Fraud remains a major problem, with our data showing that over £210 million was stolen by criminals through APP fraud in the first half of 2024,” said Dianne Doodnath, Principal of Economic Crime at UK Finance. “APP fraud originating from telephone calls or SMS continues to be of higher value and accounted for 35% of losses.

“To address social engineering tactics used by criminals, cross-industry collaboration has once again proven critical. Working with GSMA has been invaluable in making UK mobile network operators available to support and analyse data with our financial services members. This collaboration has resulted in a strong solution that should have a real impact by identifying criminal activity and increasing fraud detection.”

Brian Gorman, Fintech Lead at GSMA, added: “It is great to see the result of our members’ collaboration directly addressing that problem and providing significant benefit to the UK public – Scam Signal is already detecting fraudulent calls and stopping transactions to criminals. Delivering this solution was made possible by the close collaboration between our members and UK Finance and its members; and we are looking forward to continuing our valuable work together.”

A recent rise in scams, hacks and frauds is well documented, and yesterday VMO2 called on the UK government appoint a dedicated fraud minister and create a ‘single centralised, specialised and properly resourced national policing body’ responsible for investigating all instances of fraud.

Professional fraud gangs are ‘persistently and aggressively targeting the public’, said VMO2, and cited research from Strand Partners which says 69% of Brits report that they’ve been targeted by scammers.