TL;DR: UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report 2026 (published June 12, 2026) says criminals stole about £1.28 billion through payment fraud in 2025, up 4%. Unauthorised fraud fell 5% to £703.4 million, while authorised push payment (APP) scams rose 19% to £576.4 million across 248,070 cases. Investment scams cost £221.5 million, up 40%. Banks reimbursed 61% of APP losses (£354.3 million).
The headline numbers
UK Finance reports bank-confirmed payment fraud from its members. It splits fraud into two kinds: unauthorised fraud, where the account holder did not approve the payment, and authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where a person is tricked into sending money.
| Type | Losses, 2025 | Cases | Change in losses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unauthorised fraud | £703.4 million | 3.81 million (+11%) | -5% |
| APP scams | £576.4 million | 248,070 (+7%) | +19% |
| Total | about £1.28 billion | +4% |
UK Finance also reports that banks stopped £1.68 billion of attempted unauthorised fraud in 2025. APP losses grew 19% while unauthorised losses fell 5%, although unauthorised cases rose 11%.
APP scams by type
| Scam type | Losses, 2025 | Change in losses | Cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment | £221.5 million | +40% | 14,893 (+26%) |
| Purchase | £118.1 million | +20% | 71% of all APP cases |
| Romance | £39.2 million | +23% | cases +22% |
| Impersonation (all kinds) | not split here | -12% | cases -11% |
Investment was the costliest of these types, almost twice purchase scams (the "item never arrived" kind) despite far fewer cases. Impersonation scams overall, where the fraudster poses as a bank, the police or someone else, fell. Our guides on investment and trading app scam recovery, dating app scam statistics and dating and romance scam red flags cover how each kind works.
How scams start, and how much is reimbursed
UK Finance analyses where APP scams begin. In 2025, online platforms accounted for 66% of cases and 32% of losses, and telecoms (calls and texts) for 17% of cases but 28% of losses. Telecoms (calls and texts) account for fewer cases but a larger share of losses.
| Year | Online: cases / losses | Telecoms: cases / losses |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 78% / 36% | 18% / 44% |
| 2024 | 70% / 29% | 16% / not shown |
| 2025 | 66% / 32% | 17% / 28% |
UK Finance's sample and categories change between reports (2025 added an "unascertained" group), so do not read this table as a clean trend.
On reimbursement, UK Finance says banks reimbursed £354.3 million, or 61%, of all APP losses in 2025. That figure includes cases outside the Payment Systems Regulator's rules. For cases inside the rules, UK Finance's press release cites the PSR figure of 89% reimbursed in the first 15 months of the scheme (its landing page says 88%). The PSR publishes a regular dashboard of bank-by-bank reimbursement. Do not mix the 61% and 89% figures, as they measure different things.
Other UK measures: survey and police data
Three UK sources measure fraud differently and should never be added together. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (ONS) estimated 4.5 million fraud incidents and 3.8 million victims in the year to March 2026, with 7.8% of adults affected; the incident total was not statistically significantly different from the 4.2 million a year earlier.
Report Fraud, the police reporting service that replaced Action Fraud in December 2025, recorded £879.8 million lost to investment fraud across 34,673 reports in 2025 (an average of £25,612 per report as published by Report Fraud, or about £2.4 million a day). That is almost four times UK Finance's investment APP figure, because Report Fraud counts reports on every payment route and not only bank-confirmed APP payments. Report to Report Fraud and read how to report a scam to Report Fraud and Action Fraud to see how.
How we compiled this data
Headline losses, case counts, scam-type figures, reimbursement and origin data come from UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report 2026 and its press release, with earlier years from UK Finance's press releases for those years. Survey and police figures are from the ONS and Report Fraud as named under Sources. Percentage changes are as published.
UK Finance restated its 2024 figures in the 2026 report (it first published £1.17 billion total and £450.7 million APP; the 2026 report uses a revised base), so we use only year-on-year changes the 2026 report states. The 2026 report PDF could not be opened directly because it is closed to automated access, so we used UK Finance's press release and landing page and only quote figures we could confirm there or in a second official source. We therefore do not list every APP category or payment-method split.
The ONS figures apply to England and Wales. We do not convert or estimate anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much was lost to fraud in the UK in 2025?
UK Finance reports about £1.28 billion lost to payment fraud in 2025, up 4%: £703.4 million unauthorised fraud and £576.4 million APP scams.
What is APP fraud?
Authorised push payment fraud is where a person is tricked into authorising a payment to a fraudster, for example an investment, purchase, romance or impersonation scam.
How much APP money do banks reimburse?
UK Finance says banks reimbursed £354.3 million, or 61%, of all APP losses in 2025. For cases covered by the Payment Systems Regulator's rules, its press release cites 89% in the first 15 months (88% on its landing page).
Why do Report Fraud and UK Finance figures differ?
They count different things. UK Finance counts bank-confirmed payment fraud; Report Fraud counts victim reports across all payment methods; the ONS survey estimates incidents. They should not be added.
Use this data
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The chart and compilation are ours; the underlying figures belong to the agencies listed under Sources, so check their terms before reusing the raw data.
Sources
- UK Finance: Annual Fraud Report 2026, press release (June 2026)
- UK Finance: Annual Fraud Report 2026, landing page (published June 12, 2026)
- UK Finance: Annual Fraud Report 2025, press release (May 28, 2025)
- UK Finance: 2024 fraud report press release (2023 data)
- UK Finance: 2023 fraud report press release (2022 data)
- UK Finance: 2022 fraud report press release (2021 data)
- Payment Systems Regulator: APP scams reimbursement dashboard (updated July 30, 2026)
- Office for National Statistics: Crime in England and Wales, year ending March 2026 (Jul 23, 2026)
- Report Fraud (City of London Police): UK victims lost £2.4 million a day to investment fraud in 2025 (Apr 6, 2026)
- Report Fraud
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