Our approach to fraud prevention

Our fundamental purpose is to keep our customers’ money safe and secure. 

Advancing technology brings many benefits. This same technology also allows fraudsters to create sophisticated scams. We’re working harder than ever to keep your money safe and secure. 

If the worst happens, and you fall victim to fraud & scams, we often spot it and get in touch with you. 

If you spot something or are worried about a possible scam, we’re available 24/7 to report a scam.  

We take action against accounts where needed and report our findings to other banks and the police for further action.  

We use sophisticated profiling systems to help us identify where there may be suspicious activity on your account.

Where our systems flag a suspicious payment, we will contact you to check if the payment is genuine. Most concerns can be resolved by phone, but if we continue to be in doubt, we will ensure you get the help you need by referring to your relationship manager or a Private Banking Manager.

Our front-line staff are specially trained to question suspicious transactions that may be a scam. They are also trained in aftercare and follow up for those who have fallen victim to scams. 

When you pay a new contact via digital or mobile banking, you will be given scam advice and asked to acknowledge this before you make the payment. We also offer a sort code checker so that you can be sure their payment is going to the bank you expect.

We use biometrics, like finger print and facial recognition, to log into our mobile banking app as a secure method of authentication to check it’s really you logging into your account.

Sometimes we’ll ask you to provide a One Time Passcode (OTP), when you’re paying for something online or logging into digital banking. This gives us a second layer of security to ensure it’s really you making a payment.

We’ll ask you to input your PIN more often when you pay with contactless. It’s another way for us to keep money safer.

As we continue to do all we can behind the scenes to tackle fraud, it is most powerful when we work together with our customers. 

We provide scam alerts when you pay someone new through online banking and our app, to help you stop & consider if the payment you are about to make could be to a scammer. 

Fraud, scams and security advice is shared on our Security Centre and is regularly updated to reflect current trends. 

We provide on-going support for ‘Take 5 – to stop fraud’, the UK Finance education and awareness initiative, and share their messaging across our communications channels on a regular basis. 

We created the ‘Friends Against Scams’ colleague education programme in collaboration with National Trading Standards. All our customer facing staff are trained in Friends Against Scams and we also convey this training to customers.

We have a team of over 100 Community Bankers working to provide education advice and support often in conjunction with organisations like Age UK to deliver ‘Friends Against Scams’ education to businesses and local community groups.

We have a dedicated team of fraud awareness consultants who deliver fraud education advice to non-personal customers across the country.

Our colleague support guides are continually refreshed to ensure our staff are asking customers the right questions at the point of processing a payment to help detect scams.

We provide scam alerts when you pay someone new or amend a payee through digital banking.

We actively communicate with you on our various social media platforms, educating you about common fraud types and scams tactics- including responding to the latest scam trends- with advice about how to spot and avoid these. 

Educational marketing collateral, including posters and leaflets, is displayed and available to customers in branches 

We will send you a text when you create or update a payee using digital or mobile banking, with some details of the update.

We will text or email you when you have updated your personal information, like your address, and advise us how to contact us if this isn’t right.

Sometimes we will send you updates via email, which might be about your account or about new products that might interest you. We will never send you a link to a login page for your digital banking.

If we send you a text message, we will never include a link to login pages.

Where we are concerned about a payment being made on your account, we may contact you either by text message or a phone call (using your most up to date mobile number) to alert you to any suspicions we have. This may require you to respond and confirm whether the transaction was genuine or not. 

We will never contact you and ask you to disclose your digital banking PIN or password.

We will never ask you to disclose card reader codes, app passcodes or activation codes.

Never transfer money from your account, either online or in branch, after being instructed to do so, even if that person claims to work for the bank

If we do contact you and you want to check it is genuine, you can always hang up and call us back on the number on the back of your bank card.

You can access a full list of contact numbers for our dedicated fraud and scams teams by clicking here.

We are one of 7 funding founders and signatories of the industry initiative, the Voluntary APP Scam Code. The Code aims to provide greater protection to customers from scams through customer education, doing more to prevent these scams and by committing to reimburse customers in certain circumstances.

We actively work with other payment service providers, industry bodies, law enforcement, payment schemes, and regulators to tackle fraud and scams. We also work with these organisations to share intelligence in criminal investigations. 

We cooperate with national police forces using the Banking Protocol to protect customers. It provides support from police forces to those who have been targeted by fraudsters. It is currently used in branch and we are looking to introduce it to our telephony service.

We contribute funding and support to the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit– a unique law enforcement unit which disrupts organised financial fraud. 

We adhere to industry Best Practice Standards which were introduced in January 2017 and provided a framework for banks to manage APP scams, and rapidly share intelligence regarding beneficiary mule accounts.  

We plan to introduce Confirmation of Payee in 2020 to help clarify who is receiving the money from payments you make.