Facebook’s parent firm Meta said that it is collaborating with two of the UK’s top banks on an information-sharing agreement aimed at assisting customers in avoiding fraud.
TakeAway Points:
- Meta says it has collaborated with NatWest and Metro Bank in the United Kingdom on an information-sharing arrangement in order to assist in preventing its clients from becoming victims of fraud.
- The company is expanding its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIPE) to enable U.K. banks to share information on scams with Meta directly.
- For a considerable amount of time, banks in the United Kingdom have been requesting that Meta take additional steps to prevent scammers from operating freely on its platforms, which comprise Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Meta assists to prevent customers from fraud
The company said it was expanding its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIPE) to enable U.K. banks to directly share information with the social media giant in a bid to help it detect and take down scamming accounts and coordinated fraud schemes.
According to the report, Meta said that the tech has already been tested with multiple lenders in the U.K. In one example, Meta says it was able to take down 20,000 accounts from scammers engaged in a concert ticket scam network targeting people in the U.K. and U.S., thanks to data shared by British lenders NatWest and Metro Bank.
NatWest and Metro Bank are the only banks in the U.K. that are currently part of the fraud information-sharing pact, but more are set to join later on, according to Meta.
“This work has already seen us take action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, indicating the importance of banks and platforms working together to tackle this societal issue,” Nathaniel Gleicher, global head of counter-fraud at Meta, said in a statement Wednesday.
“We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams. Financial institutions can share unique information with us, which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally,” Gleicher added.
Meta has long faced calls from banks in the U.K. to do more to stop scammers from running rampant on its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Concerns over fraudulent financial advertising
In 2022, British digital bank Starling, which is backed by Goldman Sachs, began boycotting Meta and pulled advertising from its platforms over concerns that the company was failing to tackle fraudulent financial advertising.
Meta’s apps have been frequently abused by scammers attempting to swindle users out of their money through a variety of fraudulent schemes.
One of the most common forms of scams users encounter on the company’s platforms is authorized push payment fraud, through which criminals attempt to convince people to send them money by impersonating individuals or businesses that are selling a service.
Meta already has policies in place banning promotion of financial fraud, such as loan scams and schemes promising high rates of returns. The firm also prohibits ads that promise unrealistic results or guarantee a financial return.
