Ms Niamh Davenport:

Those figures are for 2021. The impact of Covid-19 did change the fraud landscape over several years. Everything has moved online. As we said in our opening statement, we have seen that 80% of these types of fraud originate online and this was because we all shifted online overnight. The fraudsters are always going to be one step ahead. They are always evolving and adapting. The fact that we even moved this landscape of the authorised push payment is evidence of that. Five, six and even seven years ago, we would have seen people impersonating the bank all the time. We do not see those types of attempted frauds as much now, which is why the fraudsters have moved to try to manipulate customers into making the payments themselves.

The banks, on an individual basis, and we, on an industry basis, are doing a lot within the current regulatory framework. We are doing what we can. As I said, we have the joint intelligence group with the Garda. We have our education and awareness and we are working with ComReg cross-sector. We definitely need to do more. The biggest players we need to more with are the likes of the online companies that we are dealing with. That is where it is originating and where the advertisements are. It is on social media and the Internet. We do not have figures for this year yet but I expect that investment scams are one of the highest ones over the past number of months. We have done much education and awareness on this, working particularly with Age Friendly Ireland because the fraudsters look at the 55-plus age group of people about to retire. We are trying to keep everyone aware of what is going on. As prevention is better than cure in this regard, we need to prevent it in the first place.