The latest UK Finance Annual Fraud Report paints a stark picture of the challenges facing financial institutions across the UK. Fraud losses reached £1.28 billion in 2025, while reported cases grew to more than 4 million. Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud alone accounted for £576.4 million in losses, with investment scams, advance fee scams, romance scams and purchase scams achieving record highs.
Recently, I joined Keith Finson, Principal Strategic Advisor for Fraud and Financial Crime at Nasdaq Verafin, for an expert conversation on what these figures mean for building societies, neobanks and other financial institutions. The discussion reinforced just how quickly the threat landscape is evolving and why traditional approaches to fraud prevention are increasing inadequate.
Fraud Has Become a National Security Issue
Fraud is not simply a financial services problem; it is a broader threat to UK society. As Keith explained during the webinar, fraud is now the most committed crime in the UK. The impact extends beyond financial losses, creating significant psychological harm for victims while generating proceeds that can support wider criminal activity.
As Keith highlighted, there is also a risk of overlooking the human side of fraud. While reimbursement frameworks play an important role in helping victims recover financially, the emotional impact often remains. Victims may experience anxiety, a loss of confidence, embarrassment and a lasting sense that their trust has been violated. In many cases, the financial loss can be repaired, but the emotional consequences are far more difficult to reverse.
“It’s not just the financial loss. The psychological impact can be enormous. I’ve worked with scam victims who lost their life savings and while money may sometimes be recovered, the emotional harm can be far more difficult to reverse. The sooner our industry works together, the better positioned we are to prevent this harm before it occurs.”
– Keith Finson, Principal Strategic Advisor for Fraud and Financial Crime, Nasdaq Verafin
As an industry, we are understandably focusing on losses, recovery rates and detection effectiveness. However, fraud is ultimately a crime against people. Keeping the customer impact front and centre is essential when evaluating how we measure success and where we focus our prevention efforts. For financial institutions, this means reducing losses as well as protecting customers, preserving trust and safeguarding the integrity of the wider financial system.
APP Fraud Continues to Accelerate
One of the most significant findings from the report is the continued growth of APP fraud. Unlike many traditional fraud typologies, APP fraud relies on manipulation rather than compromise. Customers authorise payments themselves, often believing they are acting legitimately.
The UK Finance Fraud report highlights particularly strong growth in investment scams, advance fee scams, romance scams and purchase scams. These threats often begin long before money moves, with fraudsters using social engineering techniques to build trust and persuade victims to act.
These scams have become increasingly sophisticated. What was once an easily identifiable phishing attempt has evolved into highly personalised attacks that can unfold over weeks or even months. As noted in our recent blog The Shifting Fraud Landscape, criminals are increasingly combining social engineering, digital channels and emerging technologies to scale attacks and personalise scams. The result is fraud that is harder to identify, more convincing to victims and increasingly difficult for institutions to detect through traditional controls alone.
AI Is Changing the Scale of the Threat
Another clear theme from both the report and our discussion was the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI). Criminals are increasingly using AI-powered tools to gather information, create convincing communications and scale their operations more efficiently. The result is fraud that is becoming faster, more personalised and more difficult to detect.
“We’re seeing an arms race between bad actors and the industry. Organised crime groups are using AI to create fraud at scale, making it incumbent on financial institutions to adopt the right technology and intelligence to keep pace.”
– Keith Finson, Principal Strategic Advisor for Fraud and Financial Crime, Nasdaq Verafin
This is one reason fraud volumes continue to rise even as many institutions improve their controls. The challenge is no longer just identifying suspicious transactions. It is keeping pace with adversaries that can rapidly adapt and deploy new techniques at scale.
Criminals Operate in Networks
One of the most important discussions during the webinar focused on the increasingly interconnected nature of financial crime.
Scams, mule accounts and money laundering do not exist in isolation. They are part of a broader criminal ecosystem. Funds stolen through APP fraud often move through mule networks before being integrated into wider money laundering activity.
“Fraudsters don’t think in products, channels or organisational boundaries. They exploit the gaps between them.”
– Keith Finson, Principal Strategic Advisor for Fraud and Financial Crime, Nasdaq Verafin
The challenge for many institutions is that they only see a small portion of this activity. They monitor multiple channels and systems but critical signals often remain fragmented. Bringing those signals together helps institutions understand customer behaviour, identify hidden connections and make more informed decisions. It also helps reduce unnecessary friction for legitimate customers while improving fraud detection outcomes.
This is one of the reasons why financial institutions are increasingly looking to bring fraud and AML efforts closer together. As Keith wrote recently in his blog UK Building Societies Need FRAML: A Smarter Approach to Fraud Detection and AML, criminals do not distinguish between fraud and financial crime. A scam payment can quickly become a mule account investigation and a mule account can become part of a wider money laundering network. Understanding those connections is increasingly critical to effective detection and prevention.
UK Finance Fraud Report: Turning Insight into Action
The UK Finance Fraud Report reinforces a reality that many financial institutions already recognise: fraud is becoming more scalable, more persuasive and more operationally demanding. At the same time, criminals are increasingly leveraging AI and networked criminal infrastructure to stay ahead.
For financial institutions, the response cannot simply be more alerts or more manual reviews. It requires a broader view of risk that connects fraud, AML and financial crime intelligence into a more unified strategy.
At Nasdaq Verafin, we believe that is where the future of financial crime prevention lies: helping institutions move beyond isolated investigations and harness the power of a connected crime-fighting network. Through consortium intelligence, behavioural analytics and a unified FRAML approach, institutions can identify risk earlier, reduce operational burden and better protect the customers and communities they serve.
Watch my full discussion with Keith here: Fraud in Focus: Turning UK Finance Insights into Action: An Expert Conversation for Credit Unions, Building Societies and Neobanks.
About the Author
BEN ROWLEY
Global Marketing Lead
Ben Rowley is Global Marketing Lead at Nasdaq Verafin, where he drives international growth and market engagement across financial crime prevention solutions. With deep experience in go‑to‑market strategy, customer insights, and global market expansion, Ben has held senior roles across credit bureaus, top‑tier banks, and fintechs, including leading data‑led risk and identity solutions at Experian. He began his career at Barclays, bringing first‑hand banking experience to his work translating complex technologies into clear, customer‑focused solutions through a highly collaborative approach.
