Irish banking chief warns fraudsters have more ways than ever to target victims

Banking leader Susan Russell says fraud is now an 'omnipresent threat' as criminals exploit digital platforms to steal billions

An early 19th Century Irish forged note.

Criminals have never had so many ways to target their victims for financial crimes, the president of Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) has warned.

Susan Russell, who also heads the Bank of Ireland Retail division, warned that fraud has evolved into a frontline battleground in financial crime, with criminals now targeting consumers directly and stealing billions of euro from innocent victims.

“Because there are millions of victims spread throughout the world their voice can be lost. Some victims are losing life altering sums of money, their pension, their savings or even just the money they need to get through the week."

She was speaking at the “Preventing Fraud through Innovation, Regulation, and Collaboration” conference at Trinity College and reflected on banks’ long-standing role in fraud prevention, showing delegates a fake early 19th-century banknote.

“Even then, our early predecessors were on the front line of identifying and preventing fraud….Our collective responsibility, to protect customers and the integrity of the financial system, has remained exactly the same.”

Ms Russell said that today, criminals have more ways than ever to target victims.

"Whether it is through a text message, a messaging app, by phone or through a fake social media advert fraud has become an omnipresent threat to consumers and our customers. Other sectors have a responsibility to take action to prevent their services and platforms being used by criminals," she said.

She commended the telecoms sector’s early efforts and called on the Irish Government to legislate for full SMS scam filters, already deployed successfully in other jurisdictions. She also urged swift reform of the EU’s Digital Services Act, which she described as “a good concept in theory, which doesn’t work in the real world.” 

The Act relies on users and ‘trusted flaggers’ to report fraudulent adverts, but scam content often vanishes before victims realise they have been targeted.

She proposed a simple, effective solution: requiring online platforms to verify that financial services advertisers are authorised by a recognised regulator before publishing their adverts.

“This would prevent thousands of fake adverts from ever reaching the public.”

“The sooner that policy makers accept that the Digital Services Act alone is not the solution to this urgent problem … the quicker new protections can be rolled out to protect EU consumers and cut off a large revenue stream for criminality," Ms Russell said.