The UK advocacy group believes that organised criminal gangs are leverage the complexities and speed of cross-border payments to obscure transactions and evade detection, especially through UK-based accounts. APP fraud losses in the UK hit £213.7 million in the first half of this year. The endemic nature of the scam is highlighted by research from Visa which found that one-in-three consumers in the UK had fallen victim to some form of APP fraud in 2003. Tony Craddock, director general of The Payments Association, comments: “The UK’s Faster Payments system was the first of its kind, but was not designed to protect us from today’s super-smart fraudsters. As a result, although it allows rapid fund transfers, it has become a focal point for international criminals, because faster transactions make it difficult to halt fraudulent payments before funds disappear into networks of ‘money mules’ worldwide.” Craddock says that the speed and ease of global payment channels allow criminals to exploit system gaps across jurisdictions, complicating fraud detection. He contends that the lack of cohesive international standards for Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) protocols enables fraudsters to exploit regional regulatory differences to hide their activities. To combat the issue, The Payments Association is calling for increased collaboration among financial institutions, regulators, law enforcement, and technology providers, to share data, intelligence, and best practices. He highlights Australia’s approach as a model, where a collaborative framework among banks, law enforcement, and technology providers has led to marked improvements in fraud detection. Despite the challenges, the report identifies opportunities for improvement, such as enhancing KYC standards, fostering cross-border cooperation, and adopting tokenisation to limit exposure to fraud risks in transit.