Online banking: Fraud losses in the United Kingdom (UK) 2010-2020
Online banking fraud is the fraudulent act of accessing and/or transferring funds from a person's online banking account for the purpose of financial gain. The annual value of online banking fraud losses fluctuated overall during the period under observation, reaching a value of approximately 159.7 million British pounds in 2020. The second-largest value of online banking fraud losses in the UK was found in 2015, when a total annual value of 133.5 million British pounds was recorded.
Fraud offences on the rise across UK
In the 2023/24 reporting year, the police in England and Wales recorded over 1.25 million instances of fraud and computer misuse, compared with 476,400 in 2011/12. There has also been an uptick in this type of crime in Scotland, where the number of fraud crimes increased from just under 8,900 in 2011/12 to over 16,600 in 2023/24. In Northern Ireland, this type of crime peaked in 2020/21 at 5,856 offences, compared with 1,380 in 2011/12.
Financial fraud
Online banking fraud is categorized under the larger group of remote banking fraud, which accounted for more than 150 billion GBP in losses during 2019. Remote banking fraud was the third largest type of financial fraud seen in 2020. Other types of financial fraud include payment cards, authorized push payments and cheque fraud. Almost half of all financial fraud in the UK was completed via payment card fraud. Payment card fraud includes credit, debit, charge and ATM only cards. In 2020, almost a quarter of all payment card fraud on UK cards were from abroad.
