Plans afoot for 999-style financial fraud hotline

Under the plans anyone who believes they may have been a victim of financial fraud would be able to dial 555.

The initiative has the backing from the Home Office and is being examined by Financial Fraud Action UK.

The idea of a “victim services number” was raised at a meeting of the Joint Fraud Taskforce (JFT), which comprises ministers, police and financial chiefs set up by Theresa May to combat crimes that she said “shamed our financial system”.

The meeting held last month and attended by Amber Rudd, the home secretary, heard how the hotline would alert banks to illegal money transfers and help to crack down on scams and victims could be transferred immediately to their bank’s fraud department or to the Police.

The information could also be used to pool data and build up a database of incidents.

In the first half of 2017 there were over 937,000 cases of fraud, many of which involved scammers trying to persuade victims to transfer their money into other accounts.

In such cases, prompt action is vital, allowing banks to freeze accounts and stop cash being moved.

“Protecting customers from fraud is a top priority for all banks and the industry is always investigating new ways to improve its response,” said a spokesperson for UK Finance.

“This is one potential idea that is at the very early stages of being explored.”