In addition, a further £1.4 billion worth of fraud was prevented by banks and card companies.
Over £1.3 billion was stolen by criminals through authorised and unauthorised fraud last year, according to UK Finance. Compared to 2020, this was an increase of over £400 million.
Of this £1.3 billion, over £730 million was lost to authorised fraud, where the account holder is tricked into approving a payment to an account controlled by the criminal.
“Authorised fraud losses rose again this year as criminals targeted people through a variety of sophisticated scams, with much of the criminal activity taking place outside the banking sector, often involving online and technology platforms,” said Katy Worobec, Managing Director of Economic Crime at UK Finance.
Conversely, the rest of this figure was classified as unauthorised fraud, where the account holder does not provide authorisation for the scam.
“Unauthorised fraud losses fell last year, but this type of criminal activity remains a major problem,” said Worobec.