Bank customers may be obliged to bear the bill for fraud against their accounts, under proposed changes under consideration between banks, the UK government and GCHQ.
Under the plans, individuals or companies with poor online security could be “frozen out of banking services or even excluded from the system whereby banks compensate customers whose accounts are hacked”, the Financial Times reports.
UK banks – unlike those in the US – routinely cover the costs of online fraud, at least in cases where customer negligence (such as sharing PIN codes or cards with third parties) is excluded. Pushing the burden of fraudulent losses towards customers is likely to be hugely controversial.