Report into scams that trick people into transferring money to be released

A report into scams where people are tricked into transferring money to a fraudster is to be released by a regulator.

It follows a "super complaint" by consumer group Which? over concerns that, unlike many other payment methods, victims conned into transferring money by bank transfer to a fraudster have no legal right to get their money back from their bank.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) released its initial findings in December 2016, and said it would give an update on further work in the second half of 2017.

The PSR said since December it has looked at several issues in greater detail and continued to work hard to find ways to reduce scams and the impact they have on victims.

In December, the PSR said banks must do more to combat such scams.

It said that information about the scale of the problem is "poor" and the industry should compile robust statistics - but it stopped short of proposing changes to make banks liable for reimbursing victims of such scams.

Which? has argued that consumer protections have failed to keep up with changes in how people pay. UK consumers now make over 70 million bank transfers a month.

It previously said that in the first two weeks after launching an online scams reporting tool, more than 650 people told it about losing over £5.5 million in total to bank transfer scams.