Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As we know, authorised push payment fraud occurs when a fraudster tricks somebody into making a payment to a bank account that the fraudster controls. An individual could see a holiday on a website and purchase it for thousands of euro only to find out that he or she has been the victim of a scam or an individual may enter a dating relationship through an online dating app and transfer money to help someone with a medical cost only to discover that he or she has been the victim of a romance scam.

Authorised push payment, APP, fraud is on the rise, as the Minister mentioned. We have seen the figures increase by 35% in 2021, with €16.8 million stolen from nearly 4,000 victims. That is double what the figure was two years previously.

Under the payment service directive, payment service providers are required to compensate victims for unauthorised payments but there is no requirement to compensate victims for APP fraud. Protections are stronger in Britain. The regulator is replacing a voluntary code with a mandatory requirement on payment providers to compensate the victims of this fraud. Will the Minister clarify if moving forward with such a requirement here would be possible under the payment service directive?

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