Meta has announced the expansion of Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) to facilitate new data exchanges with NatWest and Metro Bank. The social media giant claimed that the move would streamline collaboration between its fraud team and their peers at the two UK banks and allow the former to more easily remove scam accounts from its servers. Recent tests of the partnership, claimed Meta, have already resulted in the deletion of 20,000 such accounts that formed part of a criminal network hawking fraudulent concert tickets.
“This work has already seen us take action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, indicating the importance of banks and platforms working together to tackle this societal issue,” said the social media firm’s global head of counter-fraud, Nathaniel Gleicher. “We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams.”
Meta action on fraud welcomed by UK banks
An estimated three billion people use one of Meta’s platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. The social media empire’s ability to combat criminal fraud on these services has been criticised in recent years, with the UK bank Starling going as far as to boycott Meta over what it argued was its inability to eradicate scam advertisements (separately, that financial institution was fined £29m by the Financial Conduct Authority for what it termed “shockingly lax” financial sanction screening controls).
It also follows criticism of Meta’s diligence in rooting out financial crime on its platforms heard at the Home Affairs Select Committee. During hearings in February, TSB’s financial crime prevention director singled out the firm’s platforms as being the “main place” where most purchase, investment and impersonation scams originated.
“For those three types, which as I say are the main ones, we see about 80% start on social media,” said Paul Davis. “Let’s not walk past the fact that, when I say social media there, the majority of them start from the channels owned by one company in particular, which is Meta.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the expansion of the FIRE pilot was welcomed by the City of London Police, the National Economic Crime Centre and several UK banks. “Spotting and stopping fraudsters before they are able to target customers is the best way to address this growing problem,” said NatWest’s CEO for retail banking, David Lindberg. “Partnering with Meta is an important step in tackling the epidemic of fraud. We welcome the opportunity to deepen our collaboration and ensure a cross-industry approach to fraud prevention and enforcement.”
