Meta (NASDAQ:META) and NatWest are expanding an information sharing partnership to help protect people against fraud.
The Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) is described in an update as a threat intelligence sharing program for financial institutions, enabling banking service providers to share intelligence with Meta directly so Meta can use it to stop scammers and protect users.
According to the update, NatWest is said to be one of the first banks in the UK to participate in this pilot, with more scheduled to join.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Global Head of Counter-Fraud at Meta said that this work has seen them take action against various accounts allegedly being run by scammers, indicating the significance of banks and platforms working to tackle this societal issue.
Nathaniel added that they will aim to beat these criminals if they work together and share relevant information related to scams.
Nathaniel also mentioned that financial institutions may share key information with them which they can in turn use to train their systems to take action against more scams.
The expansion of the pilot has been welcomed by the banking industry, as well as by the City of London Police and the National Economic Crime Centre, amongst others.
Key successes from the initial pilot include the takedown of a significant concert ticket scam network attempting to target people in the UK and US.
Thanks to data shared between NatWest, Meta and others during the six month pilot, facilitated under the cross-collaborative umbrella of Stop Scams UK, Meta was reportedly able to remove around 20,000 accounts run by scammers from the 185 URLs shared, which then helped the firm to strengthen fraud detection solutions.
Feedback after the first pilot phase has overall been positive and Meta will onboard other banks during the next few months as they stay focused on testing and learning.
FIRE is being welcomed as a major step in the fight against scams:
David Lindberg, CEO of Retail Banking, NatWest, said that spotting and stopping fraudsters before they are able to target customers is the best way to address this growing problem. Partnering with Meta is an important step in tackling the epidemic of fraud.
They now welcome the opportunity to deepen their collaboration and ensure a cross-industry approach to fraud prevention and enforcement.
Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre, said that the expansion of Meta’s scam reporting channel, following a pilot, is welcome news – demonstrating a willingness to help tackle the scourge of online fraud, by bringing together data from across the bank and tech sectors.
Adrian added that it follows the establishment of the Online Fraud Charter in 2023, in which leading tech companies signed a voluntary agreement, recognizing and seeking to reduce the risk of fraud and financial exploitation of UK citizens on their platforms.
Mark Tierney, CEO of Stop Scams UK said that they believe FIRE could become a gamechanger for reporting fraudulent content, helping protect consumers and ensuring both banks and Meta gain better visibility of the abuse carried out on their systems by scammers.
Mark also noted that Stop Scams UK passionately believes that collaborative projects such as FIRE can lead to wider data sharing and improve reporting which is key to successfully tackling scams.