Starling Bank has implemented a new AI tool for its personal, joint and business account customers to help spot the warning signs of purchase scams.
Customers can upload images to Scam Intelligence, including images of items, listings and messages from sellers on online marketplaces, and get advice on whether it could be a scam. The tool can also analyse screenshots of texts and messages from potential scammers that are asking Starling customers to transfer money.
If a customer is trying to buy a bike from Facebook Marketplace, for example, Scam Intelligence might inform them that the price is too good to be true, the image in the ad isn’t genuine, or the bank account details don’t match the seller’s details.
Another example is if a customer wants to buy a guitar on eBay, Scam Intelligence might flag the seller’s refusal to use eBay’s secure payment features. Armed with this advice, customers can then decide whether or not to continue with the purchase.
Scam Intelligence is engineered using Google’s Gemini models, running on the Google Cloud platform. This allows the tool to understand the context of the uploaded images and text before Starling’s proprietary systems provide a risk assessment.
“We’re on a mission to help our customers be ‘good with money’, from how they spend it to how they save and protect it,” said Catherine Britton, head of fraud risk at Starling Bank.
“While we work with social media platforms and mobile networks to combat fraud at source, Scam Intelligence is a tool people can use to help protect themselves.”
Fraud cost the UK £1.17bn in 2024. Authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where customers unwittingly approve payments to scammers, accounting for £450m of this total.
