Three-quarters of UK firms report increase in online fraud – UKTN

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of UK businesses have seen an increase in online fraud over the past 12 months, according to a new survey by Veriff.

The global identity verification firm’s UK Fraud Industry Pulse Survey polled 200 fraud professionals across financial services, technology, and retail sectors.

The same proportion of those surveyed (73%) reported that online fraud has negatively affected their company’s revenue in the past year.

For almost two-thirds (64%) of businesses, this translated to revenue losses between 1% and 9%, while one in ten UK businesses (9%) reported losses ranging from 10% to more than 20% of annual revenue.

“These findings paint a stark picture of the growing financial threat that online fraud poses to British businesses,” said Iryna Bondar, senior fraud group manager at Veriff. “We are not just seeing more fraud attempts, but increasingly sophisticated attacks that can bypass traditional security measures.”

The survey uncovered a dangerous paradox in fraud preparedness; over a fifth (22%) of UK companies surveyed reported no revenue losses to fraud, while a majority (89%) expect fraud to surge in 2025.

Despite this anticipated threat, almost half of respondents (53%) admitted being only “somewhat prepared” against these attacks.

Types of attacks

For 24% of UK businesses, the survey revealed that 11-25% of monthly ID verification attempts are fraudulent, and 10% of companies report that fraudulent attempts exceed 25% of all verification volume.

With 62% of UK businesses reporting an increase in AI-powered attacks and facing diverse threats ranging from malware (48%) and impersonation fraud (44%) to document fraud (32%) and third-party coercion (20%), no single security measure provides adequate protection.

Businesses are responding by adopting advanced technologies. Of those surveyed, 60% of businesses reported that they are already using AI and machine learning for fraud prevention, with another 25% planning to adopt these technologies within the next 12 months.

Identity verification and biometrics have emerged as critical components in fraud prevention strategies, with 81% of participants already incorporating these technologies into their security processes.

Looking ahead, 79% plan to increase their use of these tools in the coming year.

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