We published our policy statement on APP reimbursement in June. Following a period of consultation on our draft legal instruments, and the detailed parameters of our policy, we published our final policy package in December 2023. This includes the final legal instruments giving effect to our policy requirement. The requirements come into effect on 7 October. This is the date from which PSPs must start reimbursing victims of APP scams in line with the policy.
Industry assurance
Industry should already be preparing to implement the reimbursement requirement, and collaboration in these months will be important to achieve effective implementation. We are working closely with Pay.UK, PSPs and trade bodies to ensure preparedness and effective, timely implementation.
We are supporting this with an assurance process and targeted engagement, to understand firms’ preparation for implementation by 7 October, and to identify areas where the PSR can support.
We recognise the value of industry engagement sessions in the lead up to implementation. We will be holding a series of engagement sessions from the week of 25 March on a fortnightly basis to support consistent understanding of our policy requirements. We will publish more details, including agenda, topics and times in due course.
Our assurance activities will run alongside the workshops Pay.UK is leading with firms on operational readiness, and the development of the case management solution.
Policy clarification queries
We have put in place a policy clarifications process, allowing firms to write to us at appscamspolicyclarifications@psr.org.uk, requesting clarity on the policy statements and legal instruments. We will upload responses onto our APP scams policy clarifications page and will work with Pay.UK to disseminate this information as widely as possible to ensure firm readiness.
Evaluation
We have committed to evaluating our reimbursement policy, and this year we will publish a framework setting out how we will do this. We sought stakeholders’ views on the approach.
We also committed to carrying out a pre-implementation evidence-based assessment of high value APP scams, and have published the outcome of this.
Other developments
APP fraud performance data
In August we published the second round of APP scams performance data covering:
- Reimbursement to victims (from the largest 14 banking groups in Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
- How much money is sent from victims’ accounts by each payment firm as a result of APP scams (from the largest 14 banking groups in Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
- How much money is received into fraudsters’ accounts by each payment firm as a result of APP scams (covering scams sent from accounts held with the 14 largest banking groups in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to any UK payment firm)
We have also collected data which shows where APP scams originate. Later in 2024, we will publish this data to raise awareness about the different ways fraudsters can target victims, such as through social media platforms.
