Nine banking leaders, from Barclays, NatWest, and Nationwide, have reportedly signed a letter warning the Prime minister that the UK has become “a global hotspot for scams,” according to Sky News report.

According to the banks, fraudsters stole around £2,300 a day from British consumers, with the issue costing banks over a £1 billion a year to face.

“Online fraud poses a strategic threat to the prosperity of the UK and impacts the credibility of, and confidence in, the economy and financial sector,” read the letter, which was seen by Sky News and reportedly sent on 6 June.

Major signatorities include Robin Bulloch, TSB chief executive, Dame Alison Rose, CEO of NatWest; Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide chief executive; Charlie Nunn, Lloyds Banking Group chief; Ian Stuart, HSBC UK boss; Matt Hammerstein, Barclays UK; Mike Regnier, CEO of Santander UK; Mikael Sorensen, Handelsbanken; Anne Boden, CEO of Starling Bank; and Bob Wigley and David Postings, chairman and chief executive of banking lobby UK Finance.

In the letter, banking leaders urged the UK government to hold big tech companies, like Meta, responsible for some of the costs of online fraud and scams that originated on their platforms.

The letter, which was reportedly sent on 6 of June, superseded a letter sent by TSB chief Executive Robin Bulloch directly to Meta urging them to take responsibility for online fraud just last week.

TSB has claimed that scams that originated from Meta platforms — including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram — account for 80% of the fraud it refunds within its three biggest fraud categories, which include purchase, investment, and impersonation.

Further, TSB estimated that over 70,000 purchase fraud cases – almost 200 a day – took place on Facebook Marketplace alone in 2022.

“Meta needs to face up to its responsibility: it has a duty of care to the millions of customers who use its platforms, which is all the more important when we see innocent people lose life-changing sums every day,” Paul Davis, Director of Fraud Prevention at TSB, said.

The scams that typically occur via social media platforms are authorised push payment (APP) fraud, in which customers are tricked into authorising payments through fake messages which often originate from social media.

The main issue with these is that, despite banks have security systems in place, customers authorise the payments without knowing they are paying fraudsters, meaning the payments go through despite warning signs.

Banks are legally required to refund customers who are frauded in these ways, and victims of APP are to be refunded within five days of a fraudulent payment.

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As these scams are often sourced from social media platforms, banks are saying these companies are simply not doing enough to prevent fraudulent ads and profiles, or to make payments secure.

Meta has pushed back, however, saying in a response to TSB’s letter that “our platforms already have systems to block scams, financial services advertisers now have to be FCA authorised to target UK users and we run consumer awareness campaigns on how to spot fraudulent behaviour.”

Banking leaders appear to remain unconvinced by this – they are calling of major companies like Meta to prevent fraud and to help refund payments. They also want the government to keep a closer eye on the situation by creating a public register to show how tech companies are failing in stopping payment scams.

To convince Sunak, the banking leaders touched on how the fraud was making the UK look unattractive to international investors vital in the UK financial sector.