The post Preventing Romance Fraud with Compassion and Control first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>The review depicts what good practice looks like, including utilising early fraud detection, data-led prevention, empathetic victim support and cross-sector collaboration.
Romance fraud continues to increase across digital channels, social media and dating platforms. Victims often experience deep emotional distress in addition to potentially significant financial losses.
Firms are uniquely positioned to identify red flags in customer behaviour like unusual transactions, sudden withdrawals or changes in payment methods. Yet, the balance between respecting consumer privacy and preventing harm can be difficult to define.
The FCA emphasises that effective strategies to combat romance fraud must combine technological solutions with human sensitivity.
The FCA’s multi-firm review identifies several areas where firms can strengthen their romance fraud response frameworks:
Effective prevention starts with using good data and creating awareness of the issue. Firms that integrate behavioural analytics, AI-driven transaction monitoring and comprehensive customer and staff education are better placed to intervene before harm occurs.
Recognising signs of coercion or manipulation is challenging, especially when transactions may appear legitimate. The review encourages firms to enhance fraud detection models, ensure staff receive targeted trainings and establish escalation processes that prioritise customer safety and earl detection.
Financial recovery is only part of the solution. Victims often feel isolated and ashamed, underscoring the importance of compassionate, well-trained customer service teams and tailored support processes. Firms that adopt empathetic approaches can not only assist in recovery but also foster long-term customer trust and loyalty.
Fraudsters operate across sectors and jurisdictions. Greater collaboration between banks, payment providers, law enforcement and online platforms is critical to preventing repeated targeting and stopping criminal networks. The FCA calls for enhanced data sharing and joint strategies to stop criminal romance fraud schemes.
This multi-firm review is intended to raise awareness and guide firms towards meaningful improvements in their romance fraud frameworks. The FCA urges firms to evaluate internal controls, assess whether frontline staff are equipped to identify fraud scenarios confidently, and ensure that communication with victims is consistent, compassionate and effective.
These expectations reflect the regulator’s increasing focus on firms delivering good outcomes for retail customers, as required under Principle 12 of the FCA’s Principles for Businesses, and further detailed in the Consumer Duty rules set out in PRIN 2A.2 of the FCA Handbook. These rules outline four key outcomes, products and services, price and value, consumer understanding, and consumer support, all of which are relevant when addressing the risks and harm caused by romance fraud.
The FCA underscores that while technology is essential, human sensitivity is equally important. Empathy, accountability and education are as vital as technological tools in preventing romance fraud.
Firms that take effective steps to implement the FCA’s recommendations stand to gain more than compliance. They can build reputation, resilience and customer confidence.
By acting early and impactfully, a firm can:
Romance fraud is both a financial and human challenge. Preventing it requires a combination of technological vigilance and human empathy. The FCA expects firms to act proactively, equipping systems and personnel to identify potential fraud early and intervene effectively. Supporting victims with compassion is not only ethically sound, but also beneficial for business.
A collaborative, data-driven financial ecosystem is essential to deterring romance fraud and building public trust.
The FCA’s review into romance fraud highlights a critical intersection between financial crime prevention, customer protection and regulatory expectations. Addressing these issues requires more than reactive controls, it calls for integrated governance, cultural awareness and demonstrable evidence of proactive customer support.
Complyport can help by combining regulatory insight with practical compliance expertise to help firms strengthen defences, protect customers and align with FCA expectations.
We support clients by:
Book a meeting with one of our Subject Matter Experts today to explore how your firm can lead in fraud prevention and consumer protection, confidently and compliantly.
Ask ViCA, your Virtual Compliance Assistant. Claim your complimentary 20 queries today! Register here: https://vica.chat
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]]>The post Rise in Fraud: Impact, Strategies and Solutions first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>Published in October, the CIFAS Annual Report 2025 highlights the escalating fraud crisis in England and Wales. Fraud costs the UK an estimated £219 billion annually, with £81 billion impacting public services and £11.4 billion lost to consumer scams. The national surge of 4.2 million incidents intensifies both financial and emotional harm.
Fraud often serves as a gateway to money laundering, as proceeds from identity fraud, account takeovers and facility misuse are frequently laundered through bank accounts, fintech platforms and other financial channels. Organisations failing to detect and prevent these activities not only face financial loss and reputational damage, but also regulatory exposure under Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) obligations.
In 2024, National Fraud Database filings rose by 13% to a record 421,000 cases. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (year ending March 2025) reported a 31% increase in fraud, reaching 4.2 million incidents and representing 43% of all recorded crime.
AI-driven threats, including deepfakes and synthetic identities, are increasingly common, with 80% of scams digitally enabled.
Emerging threats include AI-powered tools like SpamGPT for scalable phishing, emotional AI manipulation (“vibe hacking”) and International Revenue Share Fraud in telecoms.
Barclays’ “Locking fraud and scams out” October 2025 webinar, quite interestingly raised issues including corporate risks such as CEO fraud, invoice diversion and bank impersonation via remote-access software. Moreover, a real-life incident was used as a case study, in which £3.95 million was nearly lost to fake CEO emails, halted by robust security checks.
Fraud continues to rise sharply in the UK, with both financial and reputational impacts for organisations. Firms must adopt proactive measures such as, but not limited to the below, to prevent, detect and respond to fraud:
These measures support a holistic financial crime framework and help firms remain resilient in the face of increasingly sophisticated fraud threats.
From 1 September 2025, under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, large organisations can be criminally liable if they fail to prevent fraud committed by employees, agents or associated persons, as discussed in a previously published article.
This aligns with the regulatory approach of corporate criminal liability, as seen in other failure-to-prevent offences. Firms must implement reasonable fraud-prevention procedures across all business areas, including internal operations, third-party relationships and digital environments.
While this offence is not yet incorporated into the FCA Handbook, firms regulated under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) should ensure accountability for fraud prevention measures is clearly assigned. For broader AML/CTF obligations, firms should refer to SYSC 6.1.1R (Systems and Controls) and SYSC 6.3 (Financial Crime).
With our international reach and sector-specific expertise, we are positioned to understand and address the unique challenges posed by Financial Crime, including Fraud. Complyport offers tailored solutions to strengthen AML and Fraud Systems and Controls and helping your organisation prepare for the new offence. Our services include:
Book a meeting with one of our KYC/AML compliance experts to ensure you remain compliant and well-positioned in the evolving UK regulatory landscape.
Ask ViCA, your Virtual Compliance Assistant. Claim your complimentary 20 queries today! Register here: https://vica.chat
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]]>The post Financial Crime Case Study: An Insurance Fraud first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>While executing a search warrant on the property occupied by the accused, police officers found various pieces of evidence indicating that he had orchestrated 134 fraudulent claims, using nine different names between December 2018 and September 2019.
The fraud was first identified when one insurer looked into four policies, which had a similar pattern of claims, each being located in the Yorkshire area, leading the insurer to suspect that there was just one person behind these policies.
During the internal investigation, the insurer found 54 claims linked to these four policies, and so the company contacted the various medical professionals that were listed on the claims, to verify the treatments they had supposedly provided. It was confirmed that they had not administered these treatments and that the receipts provided to the insurer were fake. Now armed with this information, the insurer referred the case to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED.
When questioned about the claims, the accused said he was short on money and took out four policies in different names for the purpose of committing fraud. He used a home computer and one in his local library to forge receipts from medical professionals, taking their logos from the internet.
He said that he had previously held a company sponsored medical cover policy, so knew how the claims process worked. He also confessed to using his grandmother’s bank account to receive the payments from the claims. He had opened bank accounts in her name, which he controlled without her being aware of their existence.
As part of the IFED investigation evidence was obtained suggesting that similar fraudulent claims were made with 2 other insurers.
Martin Schofield, Director Financial Crime & Forensics at Complyport said of this conviction, “we must not discard this case out of hand due to the relatively low value of the offences committed. What this activity shows us is how a little knowledge and desperation can become a toxic mix. It also shows us the intrinsic links between fraud, money laundering and effective vulnerable customer management. This crime presents potential breaches in all three of these areas, and had it not been for some efficient transaction monitoring/customer profiling by the insurer, the crime spree of this person is likely to have continued and even grown.”
Our experienced Financial Crime and Forensics team led by Martin Schofield—one of the world’s leading specialists in the field—brings a wealth of experience to every project we are engaged in. Our highly experienced financial crime professionals and forensic experts, in subjects such as anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, anti-bribery and corruption and fraud and regularly help our clients navigate the complexities of the financial crime and money laundering environment. Services offered by Complyport include:
If this article has raised any questions, or you think your firm may require assistance, please contact either Martin Schofield via martin.schofield@complyport.co.uk or Jan Hagen via jan.hagen@complyport.co.uk to book in a free consultation.
Complyport is the City’s market leading consulting firm supporting the UK financial services industry for over 20 years. We specialise in providing Governance, Risk and Compliance services to support the regulated financial services industry to raise standards and thrive.
Complyport advises and assists firms to become authorised and to comply with the rules and requirements of regulators on an ongoing basis. Our vision is to be there for our clients every step of the way, helping them change, grow, and excel through expertise, insight, and innovation, and in so doing to become our clients’ most valued supplier and trusted advisor.
With presence in the UK and EU, as well as via our Associates Network, Complyport can assist firms across multiple jurisdictions.
Complyport’s multidisciplinary consultants possess deep expertise in their field, having acted in FCA skilled person reviews, as expert witnesses in legal cases and as expert investigators for firms or their legal advisers.
Day to day, we conduct audits and reviews of a firm’s products, processes, policies, and procedures to identify scope for business, to determine the impact of regulatory developments and to verify compliance with local regulations. Complyport can also assist firms by providing personnel to cover all the key compliance functions including resourcing individuals to be registered as your Compliance Oversight Function (SMF16) and/or Money-Laundering Reporting Officer (SMF17).
Our clients tell us we live our values; we are driven, agile and collaborative.
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]]>The post Due Diligence Demands: Banks Under Increased Compliance Pressure first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>A recent Complyport article mentioned the National Audit Office (NAO)’s estimate that Bounce Back Loans (BBLs) worth £4.9 billion were fraudulent. This was the alleged result of outdated and ineffective legal requirements as well as the failure of the government to implement adequate fraud prevention measures in a timely manner—namely at the point that these loans were granted.
Moreover, it appears that the criminal actors were able to sharpen the tools at their disposal to commit fraud more efficiently and effectively than the lending organisations and government. Amidst the pandemic, it seems that these fraudsters identified the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the loan scheme and exploited them in a speedier fashion than the regulated and government markets. Is there a lesson in efficiency here?
To date, £63 million has been paid out to banks that have suffered losses from fraudulent loans during the BBL scheme. However, the money given out could be wrested back. According to Patrick Magee, Chief Commercial Officer of The British Business Bank, the sums could be retrieved if the banks are found to have applied sub-par checks, including instances where they relied on self-certification by borrowers. This may translate in the loss of a substantial governmental crutch for these banks: lenders found not to have applied the appropriate due diligence checks on their borrowers will have to bear the burden of those loans granted to fraudsters.
It is worth noting that £240 million in claims by banks or lenders regarding losses incurred as a result of fraudulent Covid loans have already been dropped. This can also be viewed as £240 million worth of errors and inadequate regulation being admitted and recognised by banking institutions and lenders. The number is expected to rise as a further £5.7 billion is estimated to have been lost from fraud and error within the furlough and self-employment programmes.
The Treasury has announced plans for the creation of a Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) to supplement and reinforce the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce launched in March 2021. Staffed by “an elite fraud squad” of data experts and economic crime investigators tasked with recovering public funds, the PSFA will attempt to settle discontent and answer government critics. One of the critics, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, emphasised that ignoring warnings regarding the lack of anti-fraud measures in government support schemes resulted in £11.8 billion of taxpayer money handed over to fraudsters and criminals.
The proposed plan will cost £25 million, in addition to the £100 million that the 2021 taskforce cost, and will aim to crack down on criminal fraudsters who have taken taxpayer money. The authority will also be in charge of monitoring suspicious activity and entities trying to gain access to government contracts, and will review existing programmes to try to detect any vulnerabilities to fraud.
The PSFA and the way it is presented as the grand solution to the problem of fraudulent Covid loans, should be taken with a grain of salt. There is definitely a need to recover money taken by fraudsters and criminal actors, but it must be recognised that this is a reactive position; the proverbial horse has already bolted. There needs to be a concentrated effort to act and implement appropriate counter-fraud measures to prevent this type of orchestrated criminal activity occurring again—not just at this grand scale but at any level where a criminal actor will seek to take advantage of the vulnerable or innocent to make a personal gain for themselves.
Several questions emerge the more we examine details surrounding the PFSA. Firstly, the PFSA’s budget of £25 million can be equated to only 5% of the National Crime Agency (NCA)’s. If the NCA, with the much greater budget (and admittedly much wider scope of control and activity), has been unable to effectively manage and mitigate the risks associated with fraudulent loans, it begs the question of how effective the PFSA can be—or how effective we can reasonably expect them to be. Secondly, should the PSFA be effective in recovering public funds, prosecutors like the Serious Fraud Office have not received any additional funding to help recover funds under their investigation. This means that the backlog of approximately 50,000 Crown Court cases will remain a great obstacle for “the system” to process and overcome. Finally, the initial responsibility of distributing Covid loans sat with the Treasury itself. As the PSFA will report to the Chancellor, is it therefore likely that the PFSA will look, or at least look closely and publicly report, as to the actual root cause of the fraudulent losses?
Recovering the money that has been lost will rely on cooperation between national and international authorities to investigate fraudsters based locally and abroad. Moreover, discussions on increasing the resources available for the relevant authorities would greatly benefit counter-fraud efforts.
We must also remember that the overall costs to the public purse are ever-increasing: it covered the administration of the loan in the first place, then the losses to fraud, and will now cover the cost of recovering those losses. Regulating the distribution of loans effectively and appropriately in the first place would have potentially prevented either the majority of the fraudulent loans now sought to be recovered, or a further loss from occurring. If ever there was a case to prove that an investment early on in effective and proportionate controls being the key to incurring costs in remedial and reparative actions later on – this seems to be it.
Our experienced Financial Crime and Forensics team led by Martin Schofield—one of the world’s leading specialists in the field—brings a wealth of experience to every project we are engaged in. Our highly experienced financial crime professionals and forensic experts, in subjects such as anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, anti-bribery and corruption and fraud and regularly help our clients navigate the complexities of the financial crime and money laundering environment. Services offered by Complyport include:
If this article has raised any questions, or you think your firm may require assistance, please contact either Martin Schofield via martin.schofield@complyport.co.uk or Jan Hagen via jan.hagen@complyport.co.uk to book in a free consultation.
Complyport is the City’s market leading consulting firm supporting the UK financial services industry for over 20 years. We specialise in providing Governance, Risk and Compliance services to support the regulated financial services industry to raise standards and thrive.
Complyport advises and assists firms to become authorised and to comply with the rules and requirements of regulators on an ongoing basis. Our vision is to be there for our clients every step of the way, helping them change, grow, and excel through expertise, insight, and innovation, and in so doing to become our clients’ most valued supplier and trusted advisor.
We have successfully assisted over 1000 firms to become authorised with the FCA and EU and are providing regulatory support to over 600 regulated firms on an ongoing basis globally. With presence in the UK and EU, as well as via our Associates Network, Complyport can assist firms across multiple jurisdictions.
Complyport’s multidisciplinary consultants possess deep expertise in their field, having acted in FCA skilled person reviews, as expert witnesses in legal cases and as expert investigators for firms or their legal advisers.
Day to day, we conduct audits and reviews of a firm’s products, processes, policies, and procedures to identify scope for business, to determine the impact of regulatory developments and to verify compliance with local regulations. Our clients tell us we live our values; we are driven, agile and collaborative.
The post Due Diligence Demands: Banks Under Increased Compliance Pressure first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>The post It’s All Happening in Financial Crime: Recent News Round-Up first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>A 52-year-old employee who spent 10 years working as a buyer in Apple’s Global Service Supply Chain Department has been charged with defrauding the firm of over $10 million. Federal prosecutors claim that he managed to accomplish this over the period of his employment by “taking kickbacks, stealing equipment, and laundering money”.
Dhirendra Prasad is accused of abusing his position to defraud the company in several ways, such as “stealing parts and causing the company to pay for items and services it never received.” He is facing charges of engaging in a conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
Two owners of Apple vendor companies have also admitted to having collaborated with this employee to commit fraud and launder money. It will be interesting to see, as this case progresses, if more vendor companies or Apple employees become embroiled in these charges.
Aiming to curb and combat the growth of malicious cybercriminal activities, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned the world’s largest darknet market. Known as Hydra Market, it is based in Russia, and has actively aided and abetted criminals by providing a platform for cybercrime services, drugs, and illicit trade.
Darknet markets do not operate in the surface web, which is considered the safer place for users to explore and interact with. Instead, they operate in the dark web, which is a net hidden from search engines that requires a special browser and software with a decryption key to gain access and use. The growth of these markets is mind blowing, with Hydra’s revenue to have risen from under $10 million in 2016, to over $1.3 billion in 2020.
The large-scale operation that took place and involved a number of law enforcement organisations demonstrates the willingness and capacity of law enforcement to act within a space that was considered previously impossible to police. Hydra servers located in Germany have also been shut down and $25mil worth of Bitcoin seized.
University of Oxford analysis indicates that a tenth of the total cost of the Covid Support schemes could have been taken fraudulently. This amounts to a staggering £37 billion taken right out of the public purse.
Criminal organisations who were committing fraud even prior to the pandemic soon became aware of the “reckless lack” of anti-fraud measures implemented by several public bodies. Consequently, huge amounts were siphoned from initiatives such as the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and Eat Out To Help Out in 2020 and 2021.
It is anticipated that 374 of these schemes were introduced by different government departments during 2020 and 2021, which the National Audit Office’s Covid Tracker is estimating to have cost £370billion to implement. Now, at least 10% of this value at around £37billion (or approximately one third of the NHS’s annual budget) is likely to have been lost to fraud.
N Trust, a Malta based financial services provider whose core business is the incorporation and administrative support of corporate structures, has been fined by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), after a suspicious investment setup was uncovered.
The investigation disclosed that seven customer records of the firm all had the same three beneficial owners, with a fourth added in 2019—and this fourth had no direct involvement in the customer companies and did not financially contribute to the investments. Moreover, N Trust did not carry out the necessary checks to monitor these business relationships and their client’s source of wealth and failed to provide proof of the origin of funds.
The number of red flags raised by the FIAU demonstrated a lack of robust anti money laundering procedures in the company’s framework, resulting in the fine.
A solicitor has allegedly tipped off a client regarding the Serious Fraud Office’s plans to launch an investigation under the proceeds of crime act. The senior partner at London Law firm Osmond & Osmond, William Osmond, (who founded the firm in 2002), was charged with forging a legal letter and tipping off a client as to the contents of a pending SFO notice.
Our experienced Financial Crime and Forensics team led by Martin Schofield—one of the world’s leading specialists in the field—brings a wealth of experience to every project we are engaged in. Our highly experienced financial crime professionals and forensic experts, in subjects such as anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, anti-bribery and corruption and fraud and regularly help our clients navigate the complexities of the financial crime and money laundering environment. Services offered by Complyport include:
If this article has raised any questions, or you think your firm may require assistance, please contact either Martin Schofield via martin.schofield@complyport.co.uk or Jan Hagen via jan.hagen@complyport.co.uk to book in a free consultation.
Complyport is the City’s market leading consulting firm supporting the UK financial services industry for over 20 years. We specialise in providing Governance, Risk and Compliance services to support the regulated financial services industry to raise standards and thrive.
Complyport advises and assists firms to become authorised and to comply with the rules and requirements of regulators on an ongoing basis. Our vision is to be there for our clients every step of the way, helping them change, grow, and excel through expertise, insight, and innovation, and in so doing to become our clients’ most valued supplier and trusted advisor.
We have successfully assisted over 1000 firms to become authorised with the FCA and EU and are providing regulatory support to over 600 regulated firms on an ongoing basis globally. With presence in the UK and EU, as well as via our Associates Network, Complyport can assist firms across multiple jurisdictions.
Complyport’s multidisciplinary consultants possess deep expertise in their field, having acted in FCA skilled person reviews, as expert witnesses in legal cases and as expert investigators for firms or their legal advisers.
Day to day, we conduct audits and reviews of a firm’s products, processes, policies, and procedures to identify scope for business, to determine the impact of regulatory developments and to verify compliance with local regulations. Our clients tell us we live our values; we are driven, agile and collaborative.
The post It’s All Happening in Financial Crime: Recent News Round-Up first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>The post Fraudster Paradise: Closing the Gaps in Counter-Fraud Legislation first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>Fraudsters employ a wide range of scams and schemes to acquire the information required to perform fraud. These schemes include:
Whilst this list is not exhaustive, it is clear that fraudsters have an almost endless stream of options through which to target victims. This is not left unexploited by malevolent individuals, who rejoice in today’s digitalised society. According to Action Fraud, a stunning 80% of reported fraud is cyber-enabled, with fraud and cybercrime activities representing over half of all crime.
Regulating the internet or even providing safety measures in the rapidly growing digital realm is, currently, looking like an insurmountable hurdle. More so, these efforts have been hindered significantly ever since the COVID-19 pandemic forced individuals in the UK to move greater portions of their everyday lives online. Truthfully, it appears that this assimilation into digital life is a process that will not go away. Consequently, the need to implement safeguards to guard against fraud—which accounts for 42% of crime against individuals and prevent the associated losses of over £2 billion a year—should be on the top of the government agenda.
The significance of this is magnified when the conclusions of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) report is considered. In their latest update in December 2021, the National Audit Office (NAO) estimate that 11% of the BBLs worth £4.9 billion were fraudulent. Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, was critical of the government handling of the scheme and pointed out that the impact of failing to put adequate fraud prevention measures in place will become clear over time. Additionally, his comments specify the government’s need to improve on identifying, quantifying, and recovering fraudulent loans within the scheme. The sheer scale of possible fraud has even forced the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to allocate their limited resources to prioritise the pursuit of organised crime.
The relevant legal tools intended to keep fraud in check are the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud and the Computer Misuse Act 1990. These provisions have been drafted so long ago that when the Fraud Act 2006 received Royal Assent, Facebook had only just opened up to anyone under 13 years of age and Snapchat or Instagram did not exist, never mind Bitcoin and crypto currencies. On the other hand, the fact that the Computer Misuse Act predates Google by eight years speaks for itself. Clearly, the legislative provisions that govern cyber offences and hold fraudsters to account need to be amended to meet the digital standards and risks of today.
To update legislation and tackle these alarming trends in online fraud, the House of Lords has now launched an inquiry into the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud. This inquiry will aim to explore how the business model of the modern fraudsters operations can be disrupted without putting the growth of the UK’s tech sector at risk. Current and draft legislation will be examined and recommendations will be made to update these provisions where needed to adequately address the range of tools in a fraudster’s arsenal. Getting the balance right between supporting tech growth and ensuring that tech companies are accountable for the harms facilitated via their platforms is important to protect victims from financial and emotional harm, the economy as a whole and the UK’s reputation.
Our experienced Financial Crime and Forensics team led by Martin Schofield—one of the world’s leading specialists in the field—brings a wealth of experience to every project we are engaged in. Our highly experienced financial crime professionals and forensic experts, in subjects such as anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, anti-bribery and corruption and fraud and regularly help our clients navigate the complexities of the financial crime and money laundering environment. Services offered by Complyport include:
If this article has raised any questions, or you think your firm may require assistance, please contact either Martin Schofield via martin.schofield@complyport.co.uk or Jan Hagen via jan.hagen@complyport.co.uk to book in a free consultation.
Complyport is the City’s market leading consulting firm supporting the UK financial services industry for over 20 years. We specialise in providing Governance, Risk and Compliance services to support the regulated financial services industry to raise standards and thrive.
Complyport advises and assists firms to become authorised and to comply with the rules and requirements of regulators on an ongoing basis. Our vision is to be there for our clients every step of the way, helping them change, grow, and excel through expertise, insight, and innovation, and in so doing to become our clients’ most valued supplier and trusted advisor.
We have successfully assisted over 1000 firms to become authorised with the FCA and EU and are providing regulatory support to over 600 regulated firms on an ongoing basis globally. With presence in the UK and EU, as well as via our Associates Network, Complyport can assist firms across multiple jurisdictions.
Complyport’s multidisciplinary consultants possess deep expertise in their field, having acted in FCA skilled person reviews, as expert witnesses in legal cases and as expert investigators for firms or their legal advisers.
Day to day, we conduct audits and reviews of a firm’s products, processes, policies, and procedures to identify scope for business, to determine the impact of regulatory developments and to verify compliance with local regulations. Our clients tell us we live our values; we are driven, agile and collaborative.
The post Fraudster Paradise: Closing the Gaps in Counter-Fraud Legislation first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>The post Pension Scams – Regulators urge caution first appeared on Complyport - Your Trusted Partner in Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology .
]]>The ScamSmart campaign is targeted at pension holders between 45 and 65 years of age. In a recent poll, this segment of the population has been seen to be most at risk from fraudsters looking to defraud individuals out of their pensions. A recent poll, commissioned by the regulators, has revealed that almost a third (32%) of pension holders between the ages of 45 and 65 would not know how to check whether they are speaking with a legitimate pension adviser or provider.
Unfortunately, it is believed that only a minority of pension scams are ever even reported.
Mark Steward, Executive Director of Market Oversight at the FCA said, “The size of individual pension pots makes pension savings an attractive target for fraudsters. That’s why we’re urging anyone who is thinking about transferring their pension to check who they are dealing with and only use firms authorised by the FCA. Pension scams can cause victims significant harm – both financially and mentally. If you are ever in doubt about a pension offer, visit the ScamSmart website.”
Typically, pension scams are run by highly sophisticated scammers who lure individuals into transferring their pensions into fraudulent schemes. On average, it is estimated that pension scammers steal around £91,000 per victim, making the scams extremely lucrative. For the victims of these scams, they lose their savings and are often left facing retirement with limited to no income.
One of the most common tactics is to offer a ‘free pension review.’ A study revealed that one in eight people aged 45 to 65 said they would trust an offer of a ‘free pension review’ from someone claiming to be a pension adviser. As it stands, the most common method of scammers reaching their targets is via cold calling.
Cold calling is not the only way scammers get in contact with their victims. Other tactics include:
Scammers are usually hard to pin down as being fraudulent by those un-trained to do so. The majority mimic salespeople, building trust with their victims to try and influence their behaviour.
To enable individuals to verify they are dealing with an appropriately approved adviser, the FCA plans to introduce an enhanced version of its existing FS Register (also known as the FCA Register) entitled the ‘Directory’. The Directory is planned to include not only names and locations of those approved for the customer facing function but also their qualifications and any relevant supporting information, including restrictions on the regulated activities they are able to undertake. In addition to the ScamSmart website, this should aid individuals to ensure the person they are speaking with is both appropriately qualified and approved by the FCA.
You can read more about the CP-18-19 Directory or send us an email or give us a call.
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