Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced on Wednesday that it is collaborating with two major banks in the U.K. to establish an information-sharing arrangement aimed at protecting consumers from fraud.
The company said it is expanding its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange to allow U.K. banks to directly share information with Meta, enhancing its ability to identify and eliminate scamming accounts and coordinated fraud schemes, according to CNBC.
Meta revealed that the technology has already been tested with various lenders in the U.K. For instance, the company successfully removed 20,000 accounts associated with a concert ticket scam network targeting individuals in both the U.K. and the U.S., thanks to data shared by British lenders NatWest and Metro Bank.
Currently, NatWest and Metro Bank are the only banks in the U.K. participating in the fraud information-sharing pact, but Meta has indicated that more banks are expected to join in the future.
The global head of counter-fraud at Meta, Nathaniel Gleicher said “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.
“We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams. Financial institutions can share unique information with us which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally.”
Meta has faced ongoing pressure from U.K. banks to take stronger action against scammers operating on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
In 2022, British digital bank Starling, backed by Goldman Sachs, initiated a boycott of Meta, withdrawing its advertising from the company’s platforms due to concerns over its inadequate response to fraudulent financial advertising.
Meta’s platforms have been frequently exploited by scammers seeking to defraud users through various fraudulent schemes.
One prevalent type of scam is authorized push payment fraud, where criminals impersonate individuals or businesses offering services, convincing users to send them money.
