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(Reuters) – UK regulators plan to curtail a new rule that would have forced banks and payment companies to reimburse fraud victims up to 415,000 pounds ($543,152.00), after facing pressure from ministers and fintech firms, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is said to be looking at an 85,000-pound payout limit for fraud victims, the report said, citing people briefed on the plan.
Treasury insiders had called the planned new rule, set to come into effect on Oct. 7, “a disaster waiting to happen”, the report said.
The watchdog will publish the report on Wednesday, it said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
UK Treasury did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The PSR reported in August more than 252,000 cases of authorised push payment scams worth about 341 million pounds ($438 million) last year where people lost money from their accounts to fraudsters posing as genuine payees.
It said the volume of such bank transfer scams increased by 12% to 252,626 cases from 2022 but the total value fell by 12% to 340.65 million pounds in 2023.
($1 = 0.7641 pounds)
(Reporting by Devika Nair and Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)