Revolut urges Meta to step up on cyber fraud reimbursement

British online bank Revolut on Thursday urged Facebook owner Meta to reimburse victims of password security breaches, blasting the US tech giant's data-sharing partnership with several UK banks as "woefully" inadequate.

"Revolut is calling for Meta to commit to the reimbursement of fraud victims, arguing its data sharing initiative with UK banks and financial institutions falls woefully short of what's required to tackle fraud globally," the UK fintech firm said in a statement.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, unveiled in a press release on Wednesday a partnership with British banks NatWest and Metro Bank designed to help protect customers against cyber fraud -- including fake job, purchase or identity scams -- by sharing data.

But with a Revolut consumer security and financial crime report showing that Meta platforms are the source of 62 percent cyber fraud attacks reported to the UK firm, Revolut's head of financial crimes Woody Malouf said "these are baby steps when what the industry really needs is giant steps forward" to tackle such scams.

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"These platforms share no responsibility in reimbursing victims and so they have no incentive to do anything about it. A commitment to data sharing, albeit needed, simply is not good enough," Malouf added in a statement.

"Revolut is deeply concerned that the initiative does not address what's required to tackle fraud.

"The emphasis is once again being placed on financial institutions to supply data on scams seen on Meta platforms, rather than Meta investing more to monitor their own sites" while "this initiative is only focused on the UK, when fraud is a global issue impacting consumers and businesses across many countries."

Revolut said that Meta "potentially" profits from fake and fraudulent adverts.

"Fraud is a multi-sector spanning issue that can only be addressed by working collaboratively," said a Meta spokesman in response.

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The company said its data sharing programme was designed so it could work with banks "to protect people using our respective services".

It urged Revolut, which was founded in 2015 and has 45 million clients worldwide, to join its programme.

Source: AFP