Articles by author
Alternate realities: transactional and economic reality in APP fraud and unjust enrichment
Two recent conflicting judgments have considered whether, for the purposes of a claim in unjust enrichment against a receiving bank, a transfer of funds following an authorised push payment fraud is made “at the expense of the claimant”. In this article we consider the application of the concepts of “transactional reality” and “economic reality” in this inquiry.
24 OCT 2024When is a duty to pay not a duty to pay?
Frauds may be unauthorised (credit card fraud, phishing, for example) or authorised. Authorised frauds may be “pull” frauds, where the fraudster is given the victim’s account details and authorised to pull the funds from their account, or “push” frauds (APP), where the victim instructs its bank to send money to the fraudster’s account. If society is serious about combatting fraud, the Quincecare duty should be recognised as incongruous. Where the threshold is crossed, transactions should be referred to the authorities, akin to a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) notification. The decision whether to comply with the customer’s instructions should be that of those best placed to investigate.
1 APR 2021When is a bank put on notice of an agent’s fraud?
By reference to previous authorities, this article discusses circumstances in which a bank might be held to be on inquiry or “put on notice” that an agent’s payment instruction to the bank is an attempt to defraud the bank’s customer.
1 NOV 2023The Mandatory Reimbursement Scheme: the obvious points of conflict within the proposals
Frauds may be unauthorised (credit card fraud, phishing, for example) or authorised. Authorised frauds may be “pull” frauds, where the fraudster is given the victim’s account details and authorised to pull the funds from their account, or “push” frauds (APP), where the victim instructs its bank to send money to the fraudster’s account.According to the Payment Services Regulator (PSR), £485.2m was lost to APP fraud in 2022 alone. Back in May 2022, HM Treasury announced its intention to legislate to allow the PSR to require victim reimbursement for APP scams. That legislation came into effect on 29 June 2023, when the Financial Services and Markets Bill received Royal Assent. This article considers the implications of the mandatory reimbursement scheme propounded by the PSR.
1 DEC 2023
