The Payments Association, a UK trade body representing the payments sector, has published a white paper calling on the government and regulators to introduce mandatory, enforceable standards for digital platforms in response to evidence that a majority of authorised push payment (APP) fraud originates on platforms such as Meta's Facebook and Instagram before migrating to private messaging channels, including WhatsApp and Telegram.
The report, entitled The New Origin of APP Fraud, is based on interviews with major financial institutions, including Barclays, Revolut, Nationwide, and Santander UK. It finds that in the first half of 2025 alone, over GBP 250 million was lost to APP fraud in the UK, with around two-thirds of reported cases traced to online platform origins. APP fraud occurs when criminals manipulate victims into manually sending real-time payments to fraudulent accounts.
Regulatory gap and proposed framework
The report identifies a critical disconnect in the current UK regulatory framework. While banks and payment service providers have been subject to mandatory APP fraud reimbursement rules since late 2024, the digital platforms where scams originate face no equivalent enforceable financial liability regime. The Payments Association argues this places a disproportionate burden on financial institutions, which are required to reimburse victims of fraud that they did not originate.
To address this imbalance, the white paper proposes a shared liability framework including mandatory identity verification for advertisers, defined response timelines for removing fraudulent content, financial penalties for platforms that repeatedly fail to prevent scam exposure, and real-time intelligence sharing between technology companies and the payments industry.
The report builds on the association's longstanding position that voluntary platform commitments have failed to produce a sustained reduction in scam exposure, and calls for the government to move beyond voluntary pledges toward mandatory enforceable standards.
Commenting on the findings, Riccardo Tordera, Vice President of Policy and Government Relations at The Payments Association, said banks are struggling with these issues, and the source remains open, and called on the government to mandate standards for digital platforms at the point of fraud origination.
