The UK fraud landscape for financial services

Fraud in the financial services industry is a topic that constantly makes headlines, but is the situation really as dire as the media would have us believe? Well, according to the recent statistics from the National Fraud Authority (NFA), released 27 January 2011, fraud is costing the UK over £38bn a year. In particular, the financial services industry recorded the highest loss to fraudsters at £3.6bn. However, on a more positive note this actually represented a slight decrease on the 2010 Annual Fraud Indicator figure of £3.8bn due to improved fraud prevention methods involving plastic card fraud (£440m) and cheque fraud (£30m).