Fraud and Economic Crime Roundtable: Event Summary
You can download the slides here.
Welcome and Introductions: The session opened with a welcome from Georgie (techUK), who introduced herself and her role in leading techUK’s new fraud and economic crime function. Georgie outlined the meeting agenda and the presence of representatives from the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) and City of London Police.
Overview of the Fraud & Economic Crime Function Georgie provided an overview of techUK’s efforts in consolidating work across multiple programmes, including telecoms, law enforcement, digital regulation, digital identity, and financial services. The objective is to create a more centralised and streamlined approach to combating fraud.
Key discussion points included:
- Identifying gaps and challenges in fraud prevention.
- Encouraging industry-wide coordination to avoid siloed efforts.
- Strengthening techUK’s role as a platform for intelligence sharing and collaboration.
Survey Results Overview: Georgie presented the results from the fraud and economic crime EOI, highlighting the diverse range of responses from various sectors. She discussed common themes such as cybersecurity, digital fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance.
- Survey Participation: Georgie reported that the survey received 77 responses. The responses came from a diverse range of sectors, including cybersecurity, financial services, and law enforcement.
- Common Themes: identity verification, authentication, digital security, AI-driven fraud detection, threat intelligence, and regulatory compliance.
- Sector Insights: specific areas such as internet scanning, monitoring of fraud-related activities, and government collaborations on tackling financial crime. Georgie emphasised the need for a coordinated approach to address these challenges.
Key Technologies Highlighted: AI-driven fraud detection, third-party risk intelligence platforms, blockchain-based solutions, and identity and authentication solutions.
- AI-Driven Detection: the role of AI-driven fraud detection models, including in-house AI models tailored for fraud risk assessment and real-time monitoring of transactions. In addition, the importance of predictive analytics in identifying suspicious patterns.
- Risk Intelligence Platforms: third-party risk intelligence platforms and their role in proactive fraud detection and engagement. These platforms help organisations monitor and respond to fraud threats effectively.
- Blockchain Solutions: Georgie noted the potential of blockchain-based solutions in securing transactions and preventing fraud. She mentioned the proactive work being done by techUK's emerging technologies programme in this area.
- Identity Solutions: Georgie highlighted the importance of identity and authentication solutions, including biometric verification and digital identity. She mentioned techUK's digital ID program and its efforts to integrate these solutions into the broader fraud prevention agenda.
Fraud and Economic Crime Forum: Georgie mentioned the possibility of creating a new forum for fraud and economic crime, emphasising the need to avoid duplicating efforts and ensuring clear differentiation from existing groups.
- Forum Proposal: Georgie proposed the creation of a new forum for fraud and economic crime, aimed at bringing together various stakeholders to address challenges and share best practices. She emphasised the importance of not duplicating existing efforts and ensuring the forum adds value.
- Member Feedback: how it could differentiate itself from existing groups and ensuring the need for a coordinated approach to avoid redundancy
- Cross-Sector Collaboration: Participants discussed the importance of cross-sector collaboration in the proposed forum, suggesting that it should include representatives from various industries, including tech, finance, and law enforcement, to ensure a comprehensive approach to tackling fraud and economic crime.
Gaps and Challenges Identified: Georgie summarised the gaps and challenges identified in the survey, such as the lack of industry-wide coordination, regulatory complexity, and the rapid evolution of fraud techniques.
- Coordination Issues: lack of industry-wide coordination as a significant challenge in combating fraud and economic crime. There is a need for stronger partnerships and a more unified approach across sectors.
- Regulatory Complexity: the regulatory complexities faced by organisations and that differing fraud regulations across markets create challenges. The importance of understanding and navigating these regulations to effectively address fraud was emphasised.
- Fraud Evolution: Georgie mentioned the rapid evolution of fraud techniques, including AI-driven fraud, deepfakes, and synthetic identities. She highlighted the need for continuous innovation and adaptation to keep up with these emerging threats.
Following Georgie’s presentation of the results from the EOI, the group heard from Emma Smy, NECC Fraud Threat Leadership and Detective Chief Inspector Hayley King, National Lead Force Operations, City of London Police (CoLP).
National Economic Crime Centre Overview: Emma provided an overview of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), explaining its role in tackling economic crime and its partnerships with various agencies. They discussed the NECC's structure and its focus on public-private partnerships.
- NECC Role: The NECC was established in 2018 to enhance the UK's response to economic crime. The centre brings together national agencies, including the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service, Financial Conduct Authority, City of London Police, and HMRC.
- NECC Structure: Includes threat leadership teams for illicit finance and fraud. The centre works with intelligence communities, international agencies, regulatory bodies, and prosecution services to tackle economic crime.
- Public-Private Partnerships: Emma emphasised the NECC's focus on building and driving public-private partnerships. They highlighted the importance of collaboration between law enforcement, government, and industry to effectively combat economic crime.
Fraud Threat Leadership: focus on online fraud, international threats, and collaboration with various sectors to prevent and disrupt fraud.
- Fraud Ecosystem: Emma discussed the NECC's approach to tackling fraud within the broader cyber fraud ecosystem. They emphasised the need to address fraud at its source and work collaboratively across sectors to prevent and disrupt fraudulent activities.
- International Collaboration: Emma highlighted the NECC's efforts to address international fraud threats, particularly from overseas actors. They mentioned ongoing work in West Africa to combat romance fraud and payment diversion fraud through collaboration with local law enforcement and governments.
- Current Priorities: Emma outlined the NECC's current priorities, including online fraud, phishing, criminal forums, and victim engagement platforms. They emphasised the importance of working with industry leaders to prevent the exploitation of technology platforms by fraudsters.
City of London Police and Report Fraud Service: Hayley King discussed the City of London Police's role in fraud prevention and the upcoming launch of the new ‘Report Fraud’ service which is replacing ‘Action Fraud’. They explained the service's features, including improved victim experience, better intelligence, and API opportunities for industry collaboration.
- Report Fraud Service: which will replace the existing Action Fraud system. The new service aims to provide a better quality experience for victims, including improved reporting mechanisms and updates on the status of their cases.
- Service Features: Hayley detailed the features of the Report Fraud service, including a new crime and intelligence system provided by Palantir, better victim communication, and the ability to handle bulk intelligence and crime reports through API integration.
- Collaboration Opportunities: Hayley emphasised the importance of industry collaboration in the new service, highlighting opportunities for tech companies to integrate with the system and provide valuable data and insights to help combat fraud more effectively.
Discussion
- Forum Structure: Participants discussed the potential structure of a fraud and economic crime forum, emphasising the importance of cross-sector collaboration, setting themes for each meeting, and ensuring clear objectives and outcomes.
- Focus: it was highlighted the importance of addressing public sector fraud as well as individual fraud - noting the significant financial losses in both areas. Participants agreed on the need to involve public sector representatives in the forum. With confirmation on the focus for the forum to be agreed at a future meeting.
Next steps for techUK:
- Forum Creation: Liaise with the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) and City of London Police to develop a structured forum for the tech sector to address fraud and economic crime.
- Existing forums: to ensure techUK members are fully aware of existing forums that they have the opportunity to attend and take part in.
- Feedback Collection: Send out the discussion questions to all participants to gather additional feedback and insights.
- Public Sector Engagement: Engage with the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) and Treasury to include them in future discussions and forums on fraud prevention.
- Library Development: Collaborate with the NECC and City of London Police on the build of a central library through ‘report fraud’ for industry to share products and resources.
Conclusion: The event underscored the importance of collaboration, intelligence sharing, and leveraging technology to enhance fraud prevention efforts. The discussion highlighted the need for a coordinated approach across industries, regulatory alignment, and stronger public-private partnerships. Next steps will involve further engagement with key stakeholders and exploring how techUK can best facilitate meaningful action in this space.
Georgie Morgan
Georgie joined techUK as the Justice and Emergency Services (JES) Programme Manager in March 2020, progressing to Head of Programme in January 2022. Her portfolio then expanded in January 2024 where she now leads our work across fraud and economic crime.
