UK online financial crime up 53% in 2016

A new report from Financial Fraud Action UK has found that fraud in the UK payments industry has soared by 53% on last year and totalled £755 million in 2015.

More than 1 million incidents of financial fraud occurred in the first six months of 2016,this means an incident happened in the UK every 15 seconds between January and June 2016.

Ian Dyson, Commissioner, City of London Police, says: “Fraud and cyber crime account for nearly half of all crime according to the British Crime Survey and this campaign is aimed at giving people the confidence to think before they act. Pausing for that short moment and asking ourselves, is this the safe thing to do, will go a long way to thwarting the fraudsters that prey on peoples trusting nature. This campaign is one element of the Joint Fraud Taskforce bringing together law enforcement, Government and business to tackle the increase in crime that blights every community across the country.”