The latest figures from UK Finance suggests despite efforts to educate the public on fraud and scams, criminals have stolen £629m in the first half of 2025, with an increase of 17% in confirmed cases (2.1m).
UK Finance says it is particularly concerned by the rise of so-called roman scam cases; where fraudsters persuade victims to make a payment to a person they have met, often online through social media or dating websites and with whom they believe they are in a relationship. As the relationship develops and greater trust is built up, the criminal will then claim to be experiencing a problem, such as an issue with a visa, health issues or flight tickets and ask for money to help.
UK Finance say £20.5 million was lost to romance scams during January to June 2025, an increase of 35 per cent when compared with the same period in 2024. One of the most concerning elements to romance scams is the number of payments made before intervention; with over none scam payments per case as victims are convinced to make multiple, smaller payments over a period of time to avoid detection by fraud measures.
A recently published Financial Conduct Authority report said firms could ‘calibrate their monitoring systems to be more effective with staff training an area of improvement identified in how payment providers could better identity the red flags. UK Finance suggest around 61% of lost money, some £12.6m, was returned to victims in the first half of the year.
One area of improvement say UK Finance was a reduction in invoice and mandate scams – where criminals target consumers making high-value payments such as property purchases by sending forged emails containing their own bank account details. Losses caused by criminals posing as conveyancers and other tradespeople to intercept large payments totalled £19.9 million in the first half of 2025, a decrease of 24% on the same period the previous year, according to the latest half year fraud report from banking trade association UK Finance.
And although the figures show a year-on-year increase in the number of scams recorded – 3083 in the first six months of 2025, compared to 2817 between January and June 2024 – the figure has declined significantly over the last five years.
In 2020, 11,041 invoice and mandate scams were recorded. In 2021, that fell to just under 10,497, with 8,305 in 2022 and 7,522 in 2023. In 2024, there were 5,759 recorded scams.
‘Fraud continues to be a major threat to our society and our economy, and criminals continue to adapt ways to steal victims’ money and funnel significant sums of money to criminal enterprises, impacting society greatly’, said Ben Donaldson, UK Finance managing director of economic crime.
“Despite the ongoing investment and prevention measure by the industry, the majority of fraud originates outside the banking system, online and over the phone, where manipulation begins long before any payment is made.
“The scale of the threat is not commensurate with the current level of government investment in countering it or the insufficient action by other sectors. The government must prioritise prevention and hold the social media and telecommunications industries to account in its new Fraud Strategy.”
