Meta teams up with UK banks to create a data-sharing program and undermine scammers

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Facebook’s parent company, the tech giant Meta, recently said that it will expand its information-sharing partnership with UK banks to help reduce the risk of scams.

Meta’s Anti-Fraud Program Brings Back Excellent Results

Scams have skyrocketed in the UK, as well as in other parts of the world, over the last few years — particularly when it comes to the ones that originate on social media platforms. For a long time, experts argued that the only way to truly put a stop to them would be for social platforms to start collaborating with the authorities on it, and now, Meta intends to do just that.

According to recent reports, Meta will expand its partnership with UK banks after a pilot with Metro and NatWest helped take out thousands of scammers on its platforms.

The new solution is known as the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) threat intelligence sharing program. Its purpose is to allow the banks to share information with Meta directly, and with Meta being the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, it is in a position to put a stop to a massive portion of scams that originate on these platforms.

Meta’s six-month pilot with Metro Bank and NatWest resulted in action against thousands of scammer-owned accounts. The company has removed approximately 20,000 accounts based on the data that the banks were able to share with it.

The pilot is considered to be a massive success, and the program even took down an entire concert ticket scam network that attempted to target people in the US and the UK.

Meta To Team Up With More UK Banks

Moving forward and with a successful pilot behind it, Meta intends to onboard more UK banks. The company’s global ead for counter-fraud, Nathaniel Gleicher, stated: “We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams. Financial institutions can share unique information with us which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally.”

Meanwhile, NatWest’s CEO of retail banking, David Lindberg, added that partnering with Meta was a big step in tackling the fraud epidemic. He added that NatWest welcomed the opportunity to deepen its collaboration with the company and ensure a cross-industry approach to fraud prevention and enforceent.

Even the temporary assistant commissioner of the City of London Police, Nik Adams, said that the initiative is a welcome development, adding that the expansion of the program will significantly increase Meta’s ability to act upon harmful content. As a result, the firm will be able to support the wider fight against fraud, by sharing intelligence and insight that will disrupt criminals.

About Ali Raza PRO INVESTOR

Ali is a professional journalist with experience in Web3 journalism and marketing. Ali holds a Master's degree in Finance and enjoys writing about cryptocurrencies and fintech. Ali’s work has been published on a number of leading cryptocurrency publications including Capital.com, CryptoSlate, Securities.io, Invezz.com, Business2Community, BeinCrypto, and more.