Fraud Demands Collaboration, Not Finger-Pointing

The publication of UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report 2026 is a timely reminder of the scale of harm that fraud inflicts on people across the UK. The headline figures — £1.28 billion stolen, 3.81 million cases, APP fraud losses up 19%, represent real suffering, and everyone who cares about the health of the UK's digital economy should take them seriously. techUK and our members do.

But the report's central policy recommendation, that tech and social media companies should be required to contribute financially to fraud reimbursement, is the wrong answer to the right question. It would not stop a single fraud. It would, however, risk dismantling the voluntary collaboration that is already delivering measurable results.

Tech companies are not bystanders — they are the first line of defence

UK Finance's report cites social media as a key enabler of fraud, particularly for investment scams, purchase fraud, and romance fraud. We do not dispute that fraudsters exploit online platforms. What we do dispute is the implication that the tech sector is passive, complacent, or — as some have claimed — financially benefiting from it.

This is not a tick-box exercise. It is sustained, industrial-scale action — much of it invisible to the public because fraudsters adapt to publicity.

Why extending liability wouldn’t protect consumers

Our members understand the frustration behind the liability argument. When victims lose life savings to investment scams or romance fraud, the question of who should bear the cost is not abstract. But there are the main reasons why this approach would backfire.

The data doesn’t support it. The claim that 66% of APP fraud originates online rests primarily on consumer self-reporting data that cannot be independently verified and is prone to misattribution. A victim who encountered a fraudster via social media, received a follow-up call by phone, and was ultimately persuaded by an email cannot reliably identify which touchpoint 'caused' the fraud. Imposing financial liability without a credible, verifiable attribution standard is not regulation or consumer protection — it's guesswork with legal consequences.

Platforms can’t stop bank transfers. Fraud reimbursement exists because banks hold your money, monitor your transactions in real time, and — in theory — can stop a suspicious payment before it leaves your account. Tech platforms don't have that capability. Tech platforms facilitate communication — they do not process payments, cannot freeze transactions, and cannot recover funds once transferred. They can remove a scam ad or a fake profile, but they cannot freeze a transfer once you've authorised it.

It would undermine the collaboration that is actually working. The best fraud prevention today happens through voluntary intelligence-sharing partnerships like, FIRE, the Global Signal Exchange, Stop Scams UK. Banks and tech platforms exchanging signals about known scammers, in real time, without waiting for a regulator to mandate it. That works because there's trust and shared incentive. Introduce open-ended financial liability and the result would be less collaboration, more false positives, degraded services — and no reduction in fraud.

The right agenda: collaborative disruption

Our members agree with UK Finance on one thing: voluntary measures must deliver consistent, measurable results. We support more proactive obligations on high-risk platforms through Ofcom. We support enhanced ‘know your customer obligations’. We support deeper intelligence sharing between tech, banking, telecoms, and law enforcement.

The problem is not that tech companies are indifferent or that voluntary action has failed, the evidence above disproves that. The problem is that the system as a whole is not yet joined up enough, fast enough, or internationally coordinated enough. The problem is that the system as a whole is not yet joined up enough, fast enough, or internationally coordinated enough.

The Online Crime Centre represents a genuine inflection point — the foundations of a system that could move at the speed of fraud. The UK's counter-fraud architecture is becoming more sophisticated, more connected, and more capable. That progress depends on trust between sectors.

The question is not who should pay after the fraud. It is how we stop it happening in the first place.

The answer is collaborative disruption, across the attack chain, across sectors, and across borders. That is what tech companies are already committed to. That is the agenda techUK will continue to advance.

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