More than £32m of fraud has been prevented by the finance industry and the police through the Banking Protocol scheme in the first half of 2021, new UK Finance figures have revealed.

This figure is up 65% compared to the same period last year and brings the total amount of fraud prevented to £174m since the scheme was introduced in 2016.

The Banking Protocol is a UK-wide scheme launched by UK Finance, National Trading Standards and local police forces. Branch staff are trained to spot the warning signs that suggest a customer may be falling victim to a scam, before alerting their local police force to intervene and investigate.

According to UK Finance’s latest data, branch staff invoked the Banking Protocol 4,782 times between January and June this year, saving potential victims an average of £6,672 each. The scheme led to the arrest of over 90 suspected criminals in the first six months of the year, taking the total number of arrests to 934 since the protocol began.

UK Finance managing director of economic crime, Katy Worobec, commented:  “Fraud has a devastating impact on victims so partnerships like the Banking Protocol are not only crucial in helping vulnerable people, but it also stops stolen money from going on to fund other illicit activities including drug smuggling, human-trafficking and terrorism.

“Criminals have continued to capitalise on the pandemic to commit fraud, callously targeting victims through impersonation, romance, courier and rogue trader scams. Branch staff and the police are working on the frontline to protect people from fraud and these figures highlight the importance of their work in stopping these cruel scams and bringing the criminals to justice.”

Impersonation scams, in which criminals imitate police or bank staff and convince people to visit their bank and withdraw or transfer large sums of money, are among the most common type of scam to have been stopped through the Banking Protocol.

The scheme has also been used to prevent romance fraud, in which fraudsters use fake online dating profiles to trick victims into transferring money, and to catch rogue traders who demand cash for unnecessary work on properties.

AJ Bell head of retirement policy, Tom Selby, said that more work still remains for the government to reduce the risk of financial scams.

“While schemes such as the Banking Protocol and measures like the ban on pensions cold-calling have been introduced to protect people, there remains much more that can be done,” Selby said.

“The most obvious place the government could start would be tackling the Wild West of online scams. There is growing pressure for paid-for advertisements to be included in the Online Harms Bill, a move that should help drive the internet giants to do more to protect users.”

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