Meta is partnering with UK banks to catch scammers

(Image credit: Shutterstock / rafapress)

Meta has announced an information sharing partnership with a number of UK banks in an effort to combat the rising number of scams run on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

The Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (or FIRE for short) program will allow financial institutions to share threat intelligence with Meta to better combat scams and protect social media users.

NatWest and Metro Bank are the UK chains to initally join the program, with several more scheduled to sign up soon.

Scammers beware

“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 Nathaniel Gleicher, Global Head of Counter-Fraud at Meta.

“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."

As part of the pilot, both NatWest and Metro Bank shared information with Meta on a prolific concert ticket scam which, in collaboration with Stop Scams UK, was able to take down 20,000 scammer accounts across 185 URLs.

Both the City of London Police and the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) have praised the program, with NECC Director Adrian Searle commenting, “The expansion of Meta’s scam reporting channel, following a successful pilot, is welcome news – demonstrating a willingness to help tackle the scourge of online fraud, by bringing together data from across the bank and technology sectors.”

“It follows the establishment of the Online Fraud Charter in 2023, in which leading tech companies signed a voluntary agreement, recognising and seeking to reduce the risk of fraud and financial exploitation of UK citizens on their platforms. Partnership between the public and the private sector is key to preventing this pervasive threat. We look forward to working with Meta, building on FIRE’s early success, sharing data across sectors to impact the Fraud threat at scale,” Searle said.

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Benedict has been writing about security issues for over 7 years, first focusing on geopolitics and international relations while at the University of Buckingham. During this time he studied BA Politics with Journalism, for which he received a second-class honours (upper division), then continuing his studies at a postgraduate level, achieving a distinction in MA Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy. Upon joining TechRadar Pro as a Staff Writer, Benedict transitioned his focus towards cybersecurity, exploring state-sponsored threat actors, malware, social engineering, and national security. Benedict is also an expert on B2B security products, including firewalls, antivirus, endpoint security, and password management.