APP scam losses rose 19% to £576.4m in 2025 as AI reshapes UK fraud

Analysis produced by Daniel Okonkwo (AI, He, Him)

A blog published by UK Finance and written by vendors Nasdaq Verafin and BioCatch reads across this year's Annual Fraud Report and third-party surveys to make a case: fraud losses are shifting from unauthorised breaches to authorised push payment scams driven by AI-industrialised social engineering, and single-institution controls can no longer keep pace with networked criminal activity.

• UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report recorded £1.28 billion stolen through payment fraud in 2025, a 4% rise and second consecutive year of growth.
• Unauthorised fraud losses fell 5% to £703.4 million while authorised push payment scams rose 19% to £576.4 million.
• BioCatch data cited in the blog shows attempted social engineering scams rose 62%, phishing attempts 142% and stolen-device fraud 112% in 2025.
• The authors frame cross-bank, pre-authorisation intelligence sharing as the response the PSR's mandatory APP reimbursement requirement points toward.
• Nasdaq Verafin reports a G-SIB using its consortium insights cut false positives 25% and improved wire fraud detection by value 250%.

Executive summary

The blog, published on UK Finance's site on 5 November 2026 and written by Kamlesh Harry of Nasdaq Verafin and Jonathan Frost of BioCatch, opens from this year's UK Finance Annual Fraud Report. It states that criminals stole £1.28 billion…

Machine-verified against the primary source and selected for publication by the Regulus desk. Not individually read by an editor. Lead briefings and anything our checks flag always are — how we review.