The UK’s new Fraud Strategy is not just a tougher stance on criminals, it is a blueprint for pushing fraud prevention onto the infrastructure providers that may enable frauds to scale.
For banks, the message is clear: reimbursement is no longer the end of the story, prevention is becoming a core market obligation
Fraud has become too large for the UK’s law enforcement to handle alone. The Government’s Fraud Strategy 2026-2029 (the “Strategy”) describes fraud as the UK’s largest crime type, with an economic cost of at least £14.4bn in 2023-24. The Strategy commits over £250m from 2026-2029 and involves three pillars: Disrupt, Safeguard and Respond.
For banks, the most important message sits beneath that structure: fraud prevention is moving upstream. It is yet another compliance shift for a sector already expected to carry out diligence on customers, monitor and detect suspicious transactions, and provide reimbursements. The Strategy points to something even broader; the increasing expectation that banks have fraud controls embedded into product design, onboarding journeys, payment flows, authentication, account security, customer communications and mule detection.