UK banks report three times more mule accounts in 2024 than they did in 2023
LONDON (April 30, 2025) — A new report from BioCatch, which prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, highlights an 11% increase in fraud and scams originating from mobile channels in the UK, as fraudsters pivot away from social engineering voice scams, which declined by 34%. The research pulls data from a dozen different UK banks servicing more than 110 million retail banking customers in the country.
“We continue to see results from UK banks increasing their efforts to detect social engineering scams,” BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Tom Peacock said. “Unfortunately, the decrease in social engineering voice scams observed in this report likely just means all that fraud migrated elsewhere. We know, for example, card fraud has increased, as has fraud conducted from mobile devices, correlating with a 6% spike in stolen-device fraud and a recent iOS update allowing remote control of iPhones for the first time in the product’s history.”
The report, 2025 Digital Banking Fraud Trends in the UK, also includes a case study showcasing how behavioral and device intelligence identifies suspicious payments in a sophisticated investment scam lasting months. In this instance, 90% of reported fraud payments occurred while the user was on a call and 80% took place on a device with multiple displays (suggesting the possibility of remote access).
“While the decline in voice scams represents progress,” BioCatch Global Advisory Director for EMEA Jonathan Frost said, “if, overall, fraud is not declining in the UK, we must consider the possibility that we’ve displaced rather than banished fraud losses. Anticipating this possibility both buys us more time to plan and gives us the opportunity to consider all potential scenarios.”
Other key report findings:
• More mules, more problems: BioCatch customers in the UK reported three times more suspected money laundering accounts in 2024 than they did the year before.
• Malware on the decline: Fraud cases utilizing malware dropped by 27% in the UK.
• Card payment fraud grows: Reported cases of fraudulent authorization of card payments in the UK increased by 16%.
• Patient fraudsters: While the majority of investment scams last only a day, 16% continue for a full week and 9% last longer than a month.
Click here to view the complete report.
###
About BioCatch:
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting more than 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's machine-learning models reveal patterns in user behavior and provide device intelligence that, together, distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. The company’s Client Innovation Board – an industry-led initiative in partnership with American Express, Barclays, Citi Ventures, HSBC, National Australia Bank, and others – collaborates to pioneer innovative ways of leveraging customer relationships for improved fraud detection. Today, 34 of the world's largest 100 banks and 257 total financial institutions deploy BioCatch solutions, analyzing 14 billion user sessions per month and protecting 447 million people around the world from fraud and financial crime.
###
PR Contact:
Mac King
BioCatch director of global marketing communications
Mac.King@BioCatch.com
