New complaints surged 35% at fintech in second half of 2023. UK regulators are readying a new regime to tackle online fraud.
Revolut Ltd. has denied thousands of UK customers’ requests to be reimbursed after they were defrauded by scammers, leading many of them to turn to the country’s Financial Ombudsman Service for help with their case, Bloomberg reports.
The fintech giant saw a 35% surge in new fraud complaints from customers in the second half of 2023, the latest period for which data is available, according to figures provided by the ombudsman. That topped all rivals and UK lenders and comes as regulators ramp up efforts to tackle online scams plaguing the industry.
The data, unearthed by Bloomberg, reveals that in nearly half of all cases reviewed and closed last year, the ombudsman ordered Revolut to reimburse customers for their losses.
However, separate data from law firms representing the fintech’s customers indicate that Revolut has continued to deny these claims.
The news comes ahead of new rules by the Payment Systems Regulator which come into force by October, under which payments services providers in the UK must reimburse consumers who have fallen victim to an authorised push payment scams when using Faster Payments. The reimbursement, up to a value of £415,000, will be split 50:50 between sending and receiving PSPs.
This has caused alarm among the neobanking community over a potentially costly hit to their bottom lines and led to an intense lobbying effort to push the maximum value down to £30,000 and to impose a ‘tech levy’ on social media firms where many such crimes originate.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
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