Push payment fraud (also known as "authorised push payment fraud" or APP fraud) is a form of

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

in which victims are manipulated into making real-time payments to fraudsters, typically by social engineering attacks involving

impersonation An impersonator is someone who imitates or copies the behavior or actions of another. There are many reasons for impersonating someone: *Living history: After close study of some historical figure, a performer may dress and speak "as" that ...

. These authorised frauds can also be related to investment scams, where the victim is tricked into sending money for investments that do not exist, and to

romance scam A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud ag ...

s, where the fraudster tricks the victim into thinking they are in a relationship. The opposing type of fraud is known as "pull payment fraud", which occurs when an account holder provides a payee with the relevant

bank account A bank account is a financial account maintained by a bank or other financial institution in which the financial transaction A financial transaction is an Contract, agreement, or communication, between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, ...

details enabling a fraudulent payee to take (or "pull") funds from the payer’s account.Power, L. and Elgar, R.
Push payment fraud: Update Autumn 2018
''Walker Morris'' published on 17 October 2018, accessed on 1 April 2025

United Kingdom

Until 2019 in the United Kingdom, because the victims of these frauds authorised the payments, albeit mistakenly, they were typically not fully reimbursed by their banks. In September 2016, ''

Which? ''Which?'' is a United Kingdom brand name that promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights, and offering indepen ...

'' raised a

super-complaint A super-complaint is a complaint made in the UK by a state-approved "super-complainant" or watchdog organisation on behalf of consumers, which was fast-tracked to a higher authority such as the Office of Fair Trading (prior to its dissolution on 1 ...

regarding push payments and calling for changes in legislation to provide better protection for innocent bank customers. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) investigated and found within "a short space of time" that the UK banks could work together in a better way to avoid scams and that some banks needed to do more to identify "potentially fraudulent incoming payments". The regulator was also concerned that there was limited information available on the scale and nature of the problem. The PSR initiated a consultation process in November 2017, which was completed in February 2018. In March 2018 a "draft contingent model code" was published. From May 2019 some victims were able to receive refunds under the Contingent Reimbursement Model Scheme, a voluntary scheme overseen by the PSR which provides protections for customers of signatory firms, subject to a number of exclusions. New rules where introduced on 7 October 2024 covering claims for reimbursement for amounts up to £85,000.

Ireland

KPMG KPMG is a multinational professional services network, based in London, United Kingdom. As one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, and PwC. KPMG is a network of firms in 145 countries with 275,288 emplo ...

has reported that the

Central Bank of Ireland The Central Bank of Ireland () is the national central bank for Ireland within the Eurosystem. It was the Irish central bank from 1943 to 1998, issuing the Irish pound. It is also the country's main financial regulatory authority, and since 2 ...

set out its APP fraud banking expectations in its ''Consumer Protection Outlook Report 2023''. The Central Bank requires financial businesses, to operate "effective measures to mitigate the risk of fraud", taking a proactive approach, and helping customers where necessary to recover funds where possible.KPMG
Authorised Push Payment Scams
accessed on 2 April 2025

References

Fraud Payments {{finance-stub