Authorised Push Payment (APP) Fraud: A Growing Threat
APP fraud is currently the most prevalent type of financial scam in the UK, with losses estimated at £459.7 million in 2023 alone[1].
APP fraud occurs when a victim is deceived into willingly transferring money from their account to one controlled by a fraudster. These scams are often highly sophisticated, with 76% of cases originating from online platforms—and accounting for 30% of total financial losses. Social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok are frequently used to promote convincing scams that result in severe financial harm for individuals and increased regulatory and reimbursement pressure on financial institutions.
Once a payment is authorised, fraudsters rapidly move the funds through multiple accounts—often overseas—making recovery extremely difficult.
Mixed Results in Platform Efforts to Combat Online Scams
While platforms such as Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) have introduced measures to combat scam content—including policy commitments to act on reported fraud and partnerships with organisations like Stop Scams UK—their effectiveness remains inconsistent. Other major platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Reddit, have also pledged to address online fraud through initiatives like the UK’s Online Fraud Charter and updates to their content policies prohibiting fraudulent activity.
Stop Scams UK has played a key role in fostering collaboration between banks, telecom providers, and tech platforms to improve scam takedown responsiveness. However, industry reports—including from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority—highlight significant delays, with some fraudulent content remaining online for up to six weeks. These lags raise serious concerns about the efficacy of current enforcement mechanisms.
This highlights the pressing need for regulated firms to take a more proactive role in identifying, evidencing, and escalating scam activity to support timely removals and strengthen collective disruption efforts.
Social Media: The Engine Room of APP Scams
Fraudsters today are becoming increasingly sophisticated, creating convincing online personas, promoting fake investment opportunities, and exploiting victims through romance or impersonation scams. These deceptive tactics are rapidly disseminated across social media platforms, allowing criminals to target a vast audience with startling efficiency.
Recent data from Santander’s Quarterly ScamTracker sheds light on the growing scale of the issue:
- Over 60% of scams reported to Santander originated on social media platforms.
- Purchase scams were the most common, often involving fake ads for concert tickets, electronics, or clothing, with victims tricked into making payments via bank transfers.
- Investment fraud, particularly involving bogus cryptocurrency or trading schemes, has been notably prevalent on Instagram, resulting in substantial financial losses.
- Impersonation scams, often conducted via phishing links shared through messaging apps and social networks, have also seen a sharp increase.
These findings are consistent with broader industry data:
- £459.7 million was lost to APP fraud in 2023 across 232,429 reported cases (UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2024).
- The Payment Systems Regulator recorded £341 million in APP scam losses in 2023.
- In the first half of 2024 alone, APP fraud losses reached £213.7 million (UK Finance).
- The National Crime Agency (NCA) reports that most fraud is now cyber-enabled, with criminals operating at scale and often from overseas.
Globally, the problem is just as urgent. In the United States, consumer cybercrime losses hit $12.5 billion in 2024, with 23% of scams linked to social media. Emerging threats such as deepfakes and AI-driven impersonation are further complicating efforts to detect and dismantle fraud, highlighting the critical need for cross-border digital intelligence tools.
Conclusion: Fraud is Digital—And Increasingly Social
The data is clear: the root of APP fraud lies in the digital ecosystem, with social media acting as a primary delivery channel. Addressing this growing threat will require not just platform accountability, but active collaboration across financial institutions, regulators, and tech providers—with a focus on speed, intelligence sharing, and advanced detection capabilities.
Raising the Bar: New Regulatory Demands on Firms
Regulated firms are now operating under a significantly more stringent legal and regulatory regime. The Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code, along with new rules introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in 2024, enforces shared responsibility between sending and receiving payment service providers in cases of APP fraud.
Key requirements include:
- Joint liability for reimbursing most APP fraud losses involving Faster Payments.
- Mandatory reimbursement within five business days in most cases.
- A clear obligation to demonstrate timely and appropriate action—or face regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and enforcement.
As a result, firms must go beyond traditional fraud detection. They need the capability to investigate the full context and origin of scams—whether triggered by customer reports, transaction monitoring, or third-party alerts—and respond quickly to limit impact and ensure compliance.
Chorus Intelligence: Equipping Firms to Tackle APP Fraud at Scale
Chorus Intelligence delivers advanced tools purpose-built to help fraud and financial crime teams investigate APP fraud—especially when scams originate online or via social media.
The Chorus Intelligence Suite empowers teams with:
- Advanced social media and OSINT investigation tools
Access intelligence across 200+ social and open-source platforms, from mainstream networks to niche forums. Investigators can identify scam profiles, trace digital footprints, and detect fraud patterns. Built-in IP obfuscation ensures user anonymity and safeguards corporate infrastructure when operating in hostile or deceptive environments. - Evidential capture technology
Capture online content—posts, profiles, messages, and metadata—in a format that meets criminal and civil evidential standards. Trusted for over 15 years by law enforcement and regulators, Chorus tools enable firms to compile robust evidence for use in legal disclosures, regulatory reporting, and platform takedown requests, mitigating legal and reputational risk. - Network visualisation and link analysis
Reveal hidden connections between scam accounts, mule accounts, devices, IP addresses, and victims. These visual tools help identify organised fraud networks, enhancing case-building and prioritisation.
Together, these capabilities enable regulated firms to produce actionable intelligence packages that support internal risk management, law enforcement referrals, civil recovery, and industry-wide disruption efforts.
Act Now: Take Control of APP Fraud at Its Source
“Fraudsters are exploiting digital platforms faster than traditional systems can respond,” says Edward Vaughan, Vice President at Chorus Intelligence. “To protect customers and meet the PSR’s new expectations, regulated firms must invest in technology that traces fraud to its digital source, captures it to evidential standards, and enables rapid, decisive action.”
APP fraud is no longer just a payment issue—it’s a platform-enabled, socially engineered crime model. Combating it requires more than transaction monitoring. It demands smarter investigations, robust evidence collection, and seamless collaboration across compliance, intelligence, and enforcement functions.
Chorus Intelligence gives firms the tools to take control, empowering teams to:
- Investigate APP fraud at its digital origin
- Capture online evidence that meets legal and regulatory standards
- Map criminal networks and support coordinated disruption efforts
If your organisation is looking to strengthen its fraud defences, reduce exposure under the PSR’s reimbursement framework, and protect customers more effectively – contact Chorus Intelligence today.
Because stopping APP fraud starts with understanding where it begins—and how to shut it down.
Watch the full Chorus Intelligence Suite (CIS) demo video and discover how your team can accelerate investigations, reveal critical leads, and shut down scams faster than ever before
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