Home Office Fraud Strategy 2026-2029

The Home Office has published its Fraud Strategy 20262029, outlining a multi-year plan to tackle fraud against individuals and businesses in the UK. The strategy recognises fraud as a rapidly evolving, technology-enabled crime that causes substantial economic harm and undermines trust in digital systems. It is backed by significant government investment and emphasizes collaboration between government, law enforcement, regulators, and industry.

A key announcement is the creation of the Online Crime Centre (OCC)- a new £30+ million specialist disruption unit launching in April 2026. The OCC will bring together experts from government, police, intelligence, financial institutions, telecoms, and tech firms to share data, coordinate responses, and dismantle organised fraud infrastructure like scam networks and fraudulent online assets. techUK is part of the OCC's design and delivery group.

Key Documents:

Strategic Objectives

The strategy echoes techUK’s Anti-Fraud Report published last year, which urges stakeholders to focus on “collaboration, innovation, and stronger law enforcement capacity.” The strategy is structured around three core pillars with associated actions designed to prevent, disrupt and respond to fraud at scale:

Focuses on stopping fraud at the source by making it harder for criminals to exploit technology and infrastructure. Key elements include:

This pillar signals enhanced expectations around industry responsibilities for preventing the abuse of digital platforms and infrastructure, and highlights opportunities for partnership with government on technology led counter fraud initiatives.

Aims to build resilience across society and business, reducing vulnerabilities that fraudsters exploit. This includes:

Industry input into resilience programmes and awareness raising efforts (e.g., sharing best practice tooling or threat intelligence) could improve outcomes for members and the wider UK ecosystem.

Addresses how victims and law enforcement respond when fraud occurs, emphasising victim centred services and justice outcomes:

Better reporting frameworks and improved law enforcement responses can offer clearer pathways for industry to feed data and cases into official processes.

Governance & Collaboration

The strategy emphasises governance, accountability, metrics and partnership working across government, regulators, NGOs, law enforcement and industry. Industry engagement, including by tech firms, is expected to support delivery of outcomes and ongoing innovation in counter fraud tools and processes.

What This Means for techUK Members

Next Steps:

We invite members to join a Fraud Forum briefing on 20 March at 2:00pm, following the publication of the new Fraud Strategy. This virtual, members only session (held under the Chatham House Rule) will include a Home Office presentation on prevention, detection, and response priorities, followed by Q&A. Register to secure your place. For any queries, contact [email protected].

techUK will also be at the UN Global Fraud Summit in Vienna, where we are hosting a side event on Monday 17 March, 4:00–5:00pm, Room M6. Our session, “Successfully fostering collaboration across peers and public–private sectors in the fight against digital fraud,” will feature speakers from techUK, LexisNexis, and the Brazilian Confederation of Financial Institutions. Members attending the Summit are warmly encouraged to join.

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