Financial

The Financial Conduct Authority has fined PwC £15mn for failing to report to the regulator its belief that London Capital & Finance might have been involved in fraudulent activity.

This is the first time the regulator has fined an audit firm and comes after PwC encountered “significant” issues throughout their 2016 audit of LCF.

A former investment firm director from Derbyshire has become subject to stringent bankruptcy restrictions after duping people into handing over money in a £9m investment fraud.

Andrew Paul Bird, of Quarndon, was handed the maximum 15-year restriction after the Official Receiver discovered he had knowingly misled investors and exposed them to the risk of losing money for his personal gain.

The Treasury has reportedly raised questions with the UK payments regulator over the timetable for its new fraud refund rules that have stirred alarm among banks and fintechs.

The measures, due to force payment firms to refund victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud up to a limit of £415,000, have prompted concern from both the former Conservative and current Labour governments over fears they could encourage more scams and be unaffordable for smaller businesses.

https://www.cityam.com/treasury-questions-payments-regulator-on-deadline-for-controversial-fraud-refund-rules/

A group of over 400 investors in the fraudulent cryptocurrency OneCoin have obtained Worldwide Freezing Orders at the High Court in London against numerous individuals and companies including: the founders of OneCoin, Dr Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood as well as the companies through which the OneCoin fraud was allegedly perpetrated, OneCoin Limited and One Network Services Limited.

https://www.thearmchairtrader.com/crypto/onecoin-fraud-crypto-class-action/

A man took out finance on a brand-new £45,000 BMW under a false name and then ceased making payments after just two months.

Christopher Hudson, 44, bought the 320i M-Sport from a dealership in London in October 2021 under the name of Jeremy Trodwell,

A MAN from Bradford who helped fleece a woman out of more than £21,000 through an internet money laundering fraud had no idea of the distress he caused to the victim, a court heard.

Haris Shafique was said to have been involved in “a crass act of stupidity” when he allowed his bank account to be used to “recycle” money paid by the victim to another account in Nigeria.

Millions of pounds have been lost to cryptocurrency scams in north Wales in the last three years.

That is according to PC Jason Knowles of North Wales Police’s Cyber Crime, who is urging members of the public to be on their guard after a rise in cryptocurrency-related fraud and scams in the area.

Complaints about the banking sector have reached the highest level in at least a decade, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Consumers raised 80,137 cases with the frhttps://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/banking-complaints-reached-highest-level-230100989.htmlee resolution service about banking and payment products in the financial year 2023/24, compared with 61,995 in 2022/23.

Concerns about current accounts and credit cards and worries about frauds and scams were behind the increase, the service said.

Tensions between the consumer group Which? and the trade body The Payments Association remain high, with the pair at odds over their approach to tackling payment fraud as new figures show soaring scam cases.

Starting in October 2024, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) will implement new rules for authorised push payment (APP) scams – where fraudsters trick people into sending money online to fake payees – setting a £415,000 maximum reimbursement level to cover the money lost.

A fifth (20%) of IFAs do not have protective measures against fraud and scams in place, leaving them at risk of an incident or attack, new research from global research and insights agency Opinium reveals.

In addition, just over one in three IFAs (35%) report being subjected to scam and fraud threats, with slightly fewer than a third (31%) having experienced an increase in attempts to compromise their businesses in the past year. Despite this, one in three respondents (35%) do not currently train their staff in how to spot potential threats and protect themselves and the business.