Metro Bank is part of a number of initiatives to help combat fraud and protect consumers.
Metro Bank was one of just two banks trialling a new initiative – Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange - from technology giant Meta, to combat fraud and protect consumers.
Thanks to the success of this trial, the new scam reporting channel will now allow banks to share information about online scams directly with Meta to improve scam detection and enforcement across Facebook and Instagram.
"Social media scams are an industry-wide problem which require industry-wide solutions. We’ve been inspired by our work with Meta as an example of how we can all work together to protect consumers from faceless online fraudsters”, commented Faisal Hussain, Chief Operating Officer at Metro Bank. “Through sharing this information, we hope to significantly improve scam detection and enforcement, ultimately creating a safer digital environment for everyone.”
Metro Bank is also part of Stop Scams UK– the 159 service. If anyone receives an unsolicited call supposedly from their bank, they should simply hang up and dial 159 to be connected to their genuine bank safely and securely. 159 is designed to break the scam ‘journey’ at the critical moment when consumers are at most risk of being manipulated into making a payment.
From October 7th, Metro Bank will also be part of the Mandatory Reimbursement Requirements (MRR) which will ensure its customers who are victims of an authorised push payment scam - where a fraudster tricked them into sending money - will have more protections including being reimbursed within five working days. Metro Bank will review the circumstances on a case-by-case basis as to whether to apply the £100 excess. “The PSR has set a reimbursement limit of £85,000 per claim under the new policy,” explains comments Metro Bank’s Head of Fraud & Investigations, Baz Thompson. “However, at Metro Bank, we will reimburse eligible customers up to £430,000 – the limit set by the Financial Ombudsman Service - providing our customers with more reassurance that we will do all we can to reimburse them."
Consumers will still need to be cautious when making payments for the claim to be valid. For example, they must not ignore warning interventions from the payment service providers stating that the customer may be paying a fraudster or falling victim to a scam. Consumers will also need to act promptly upon discovering the scam, report it to the police and respond to any reasonable and proportionate requests for information.
Thompson continued: “We are open to working with anyone to help defeat fraudsters and improve the protection we can offer our customers. Consumers are being bombarded daily with potential scams and we are doing what we can to help educate them about potential scams, as well as working with other industry partners to help mitigate any financial fallout.”