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Action Fraud – Action Fraud is the UK’s national fraud reporting centre. If you’ve been scammed, ripped off or conned, you can get in touch with Action Fraud to report it. Action Fraud is run by the National Fraud Authority – the government agency that helps to co-ordinate the fight against fraud in the UK.
ACPO – Association of Chief Police Officers - The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) seeks to facilitate the development of common policing policies, on behalf of the Police Service as a whole, rather than in all forces separately. Its members are police officers who hold the rank of Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable or Assistant Chief Constable, or their equivalents.
BBA – British Bankers’ Association - The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) is the leading trade association in the banking and financial services industry and has a Fraud Prevention and Intelligence Unit (FPIU) dedicated to combating fraud.
BSA – Building Societies Association - The Building Societies Association (BSA) acts as the central representative body for building societies and provides information on fraud to its members.
CIFAS – The UK’s Fraud Prevention Service - CIFAS is a not for profit membership association solely dedicated to the prevention of financial crime. CIFAS provides a range of fraud prevention services to its members, including a fraud avoidance system used by the majority of the UK’s financial services companies. This system allows member organisations to exchange details of applications for products or services, which are considered to be fraudulent, because the information provided by the applicant fails verification checks.
DCPCU – Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit - The DCPCU is a dedicated unit that focuses on organised crime based around plastic card and cheque fraud and including ATM crime. The unit is funded by the banking industry and is made up of officers from the Metropolitan and City of London police forces. Both London forces provide resources and authorities to support specific DCPCU operations and retain responsibility for their officers. The police officers are supported by investigators from the banking industry and case support staff.
HMRC – Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs - HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is the new department responsible for the business of the former Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise.
FAP – Fraud Advisory Panel - An independent body of public and private sector volunteers with the aim of raising awareness of the impact and damage of fraud, and developing effective solutions.
FIB – Fraud Intelligence Bureau - Located at UK Payments, it is the UK banking industry’s rapid response group and leading centre for exchange of information and intelligence between police and banks. It gathers intelligence on plastic card fraud on behalf of APACS members and shares data, information, advice and tip-offs with the Police to combat organised crime.
FOS – Financial Ombudsman Service - Set up by law to help settle individual disputes between consumers and financial firms. A complaint must first be made to the firm and if it is not resolved, the case can then be referred to the Financial Ombudsman.
FSA – Financial Services Authority - Independent body that regulates the financial services industry in the UK. Has a wide range of rule-making, investigatory and enforcement powers in order to meet their four statutory objectives of market confidence, public awareness, consumer protection and the reduction of financial crime.
ICC – International Chamber of Commerce - The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has an anti-crime arm called Commercial Crime Services (CCS) which is a membership organisation tasked with combating all forms of commercial crime, including fraud.
ICO – Information Commissioner's Office - The Information Commissioner is an independent official appointed to oversee the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The Commissioner reports annually to Parliament and his decisions are subject to the supervision of the Courts and the Information Tribunal.
NAFN – National Anti-Fraud Network - An organisation that facilities the exchange of data and intelligence between participating local authorities in order to combat fraud and reduce the loss to public funds.
NFA – National Fraud Authority - The National Fraud Authority (NFA) is an executive agency of the Home Office and works with the counter-fraud community to make fraud more difficult to commit in and against the UK.
NFIB – National Fraud Intelligence Bureau - The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), operate a centralised database gathering information from a large number of public and private sector organisations representing industry, commerce and government. The NFIB employs analysts from both law enforcement and private sector backgrounds to sift through the raw intelligence, searching for distinct patterns of fraudulent activity and behaviour. Once a trend has been spotted, such as a identifying a persistent offender, an intelligence report will be dispatched to the relevant police forces to be used in their investigation.
NHTCU – National High-Tech Crime Unit - The National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) works to combat national and trans-national serious and organised hi-tech crime both within, or which impacts upon, the UK. Crimes targeted include software piracy, hacking, virus attacks, fraud, extortion, on-line paedophilia and identity theft.
SFO – Serious Fraud Office - The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is an independent government department that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud.
SOCA – Serious Organised Crime Agency - This single agency became operational in April 2006 bringing together the responsibilities that were previously shared by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), the National Crime Squad (NCS) and the organised crime investigations handled by the immigration service and Customs and Excise. SOCA is the designated law enforcement agency to which Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) must be reported.
The UK Cards Association - The UK Cards Association acts as the main banking industry voice on issues such as electronic payments, electronic banking, e-banking, fraud and payment card fraud. Amongst other things, The UK Cards Association maintains the ‘bank safe online’ one-stop shop website, drives the Plastic Fraud Prevention Forum (PFPF) Workplan on behalf of the payment card industry and runs the ATM Crime Group.
Fraud Stakeholders