Meta announces data sharing agreement with some major banks to fight fraud

Facebook owner Meta says it is expanding its data-sharing deal to partner with NatWest and Metro Bank in a bid to help protect people from fraud.

The first-of-its-kind data sharing partnership for financial institutions, Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE), allows banks to share intelligence with Meta directly so Meta can use it to stop fraudsters and protect users.

NatWest and Metro Bank are the first UK banks to take part in this data sharing partnership, with more set to join in the coming months.

Meta said data shared between NatWest, Metro and Meta in a six-month pilot led it to take action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, with approximately 20,000 accounts removed based on 185 shared URLs.

Data shared in the initial pilot led to the dismantling of a major concert ticket scam ring attempting to target people in the UK and US.

Earlier this year, TSB issued an urgent scam warning to customers after discovering that a third of ads on Meta-owned Facebook Marketplace could be fake.

The bank urged customers at the time to avoid making online purchases on Facebook Marketplace so as not to fall victim.

Some banks have gone so far as to describe Facebook Marketplace as the Wild West of scams; The problem is that it does not offer a payment system on its platform like Amazon and Ebay.

Meta’s global head of anti-fraud, Nathaniel Gleicher, said: “This work has already enabled it to take action against thousands of accounts run by fraudsters, signaling the importance of banks and platforms working together to tackle this social problem”.

‘We will only defeat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams.

“Financial institutions can share unique information with us, which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally.”

Mark Tierney, chief executive of Stop Scams UK, said he believes the FIRE program could be a “game changer for reporting fraudulent content”.

What the banks said

David Lindberg, chief executive of retail banking at NatWest, said: “Detecting and stopping fraudsters before they can attack customers is the best way to tackle this growing problem.”

‘Partnering with Meta is an important step in addressing the fraud epidemic. “We welcome the opportunity to deepen our collaboration and ensure a cross-sector approach to fraud prevention and enforcement.”

Faisal Hussain, Chief Operating Officer of Metro Bank, said: ‘Scams are an industry-wide problem that requires industry-wide solutions.

‘We have been inspired by our work with Meta as an example of how we can all work together to protect consumers from anonymous online scammers.

“By sharing this information, we hope to significantly improve scam detection and enforcement and ultimately create a safer digital environment for everyone.”