Barclays Fights Fraud With Smartphone Debit Card Controls And Scam Awareness Drive

Barclays is injecting a extra layer of security into its debts cards as part of a £10 million push to tackle fraud and raise awareness of financial crime and scams.

Through the Barclays Mobile Banking app, the British bank is giving its customers more control over how their cards are used.

People can decide where and how their card works through the app, including setting their own daily ATM cash withdrawal limit and deciding whether to turn the option to make remote purchases on or off on their debit cards.

Fighting fraud

Barclays big spending on tackling fraud comes in response to the latest crime figures showing that fraud and cyber crime has cost the UK around £11 billion between 2015 and 2016, with 5.6 million incidents recorded, which accounts for approximately half of all recorded crime in the UK.

The figures, courtesy of the Office of National Statistics and Action Fraud, highlighted that London, Birmingham and Bristol are scam capitals, while people aged below 34 are more likely to be targets of scam attacks.

A mere 17 percent of people were found to be able to correctly identify basic digital scam threats, such as messages designed to trick social media users into sharing personal information online.

Alongside introducing more debit card controls, Barclays has launched an online quiz to raise awareness around the risk of fraud, as well as ploughing some of the £10 million into a national advertising campaign to warn viewers of the risks they could face.

The bank is also providing content centred around digital safety on its LifeSkills website. And Barclays also noted it would prioritise fraud protection over other products.