Revolut slams Meta for falling ‘woefully short’ in tackling scams

Fintech giant Revolut has thrown its weight behind calls for social media firms to help reimburse scam victims, calling out Meta’s latest anti-fraud push for falling “woefully short”.

The London-based banking app said on Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” Meta’s new UK bank data-sharing programme “does not address what’s required to tackle fraud”.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, announced on Wednesday that it would partner with more banks for its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) after a six-month trial with Natwest and Metro Bank.

The project allows lenders to share intelligence directly with Meta. The US giant claimed its trial had led to removal of around 20,000 accounts run by scammers.

Woody Malouf, Revolut’s head of financial crime, argued Meta’s plans were “baby steps, when what the industry really needs is giant leaps forward”.

Revolut called out Meta for not committing to share in the reimbursement of victims defrauded via its platforms “despite the company potentially profiting from fake and fraudulent adverts”.

It added that Meta was putting emphasis on financial firms to supply data on scams seen on its platforms, instead of Meta investing more to monitor its own sites.

Revolut, which has more than 45m customers globally and over 10m in Britain, also challenged the initiative’s UK focus when “fraud is a global issue”.

“We are confident in the steps the UK government is taking to tackle fraud, but what is urgently needed now is for Meta and other social media companies to commit to supporting victims of fraud in the same way financial institutions do,” Malouf said. “Their silence on this issue says it all.”

He added: “We are prepared to do our part to keep customers safe, and so should they. We should be the last line of defence, not the only line of defence.”

Revolut’s latest financial crime report, published on Thursday, found Meta was the main source of all scams reported to the bank in the first half of 2024 at 62 per cent.

This figure is largely unchanged from 64 per cent during the same period last year, with Revolut highlighting Facebook as the most common platform for scams.

A Meta spokesperson commented: “Fraud is a multi-sector spanning issue that can only be addressed by working collaboratively.

“Our pilot FIRE programme is designed to enable banks to share information so we can work together to protect people using our respective services. We encourage banks including Revolut to join in this effort.”

New fraud refund rules loom

The debate over which sectors should bear responsibility for scam refunds comes as new rules from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) will force banks and fintechs to reimburse victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud up to a limit of £85,000 per claim from 7 October.

The PSR reduced this cap from £415,000 last month after heavy industry lobbying and pressure from ministers.

Still, payment firms have sounded the alarm that the rules place no liability on tech firms for the roughly three-quarters of APP fraud that starts online. TSB Bank found earlier this year that around a third of Facebook Marketplace listings could be scams.

Draft plans from Labour leaked before the general election show it arguing tech companies should be made liable for APP fraud reimbursement, although this is not an official policy position.

The party has considered giving statutory footing to the 2023 Online Fraud Charter, a voluntary agreement signed by the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft to prevent fraud.

Meanwhile, Revolut itself is under pressure after it emerged that it had outstripped all the UK’s major banks in official fraud complaints in the second half of 2023.

Revolut, which was founded in 2015 and secured a UK banking licence from regulators in July, is currently in the process of joining the 159 anti-fraud helpline.

The service was created by cross-industry body Stop Scams UK and helps potential fraud victims contact their bank.

APP fraud cost Britons £460m last year, according to banking trade body UK Finance.