In the first half of last year, UK consumers lost more than £750 million to fraud — a 30% rise compared with the same period in 2020. Last summer alone, telecoms regulator Ofcom reported that 45 million people in the UK were targeted by scam phone calls and text messages.
The financial and emotional damage to individuals who fall for these scams can be severe. Organisations that are impersonated also suffer long-term consequences: loss of customer trust, reputational damage and, for sectors like telecoms where switching providers is easy, customer churn. As a result, many businesses now feel obliged to take a more active role in protecting customers and avoiding the operational costs of chasing payments that customers believe they have already settled.
To better understand these pressures, Mastercard surveyed hundreds of billers, including telecoms companies, and found that resolving a single billing dispute now costs almost half (40%) of billers between £350 and £1,000. Four out of five billers reported that COVID-19 worsened collection challenges, a trend likely to continue amid ongoing cost-of-living pressures.
Following the pandemic, 67% of utility providers said they had seen more requests to pause or reduce bills and to reassess arrears. As people struggle to pay on time, fraudsters continue to exploit the situation by pretending to be utility or telecom providers and pressuring victims to transfer money. These scams, known as authorised push payment (APP) fraud, typically involve emails, texts or calls claiming an unpaid bill and using intimidation or threats of legal action to coerce victims into sending money. APP fraud surged during the pandemic, increasing by 71% in the first half of 2021 and costing victims more than £350 million.
The telecoms industry is actively tackling these threats, collaborating with financial services and regulators to block scam texts and stop criminals from spoofing trusted organisations’ phone numbers. Some providers have started blocking international calls that falsify UK numbers. For example, TalkTalk reported a 65% reduction in scam complaints after adopting such measures. While promising, blocking alone is not a complete solution: as providers block compromised numbers and messages, criminals often move on to new ones.
A deeper challenge is that billers and customers still rely heavily on open channels like phone and text — channels anyone can use and which are easily targeted by fraudsters. To reduce that risk, Mastercard has been developing a secure messaging and payment request solution that removes the need for insecure communication methods.
In 2020, the UK’s national retail payments operator, Pay.UK, introduced a framework to enable more flexible, secure and customer-centric ways for bills to be settled between individuals, businesses and organisations. Building on this, Mastercard launched a Request to Pay service in the UK that directly connects billers and customers to facilitate payment requests and provide a secure channel for customers to raise questions or disputes during the payment process.
Request to Pay can be integrated into existing trusted apps — such as banking or provider apps — avoiding reliance on less secure channels like SMS or voice calls. This integration allows billers to send authenticated payment requests without asking consumers to share sensitive financial details. It also gives customers clear options: pay in full, make a partial payment, or request more time, while keeping communications within a trusted environment.
For billers, this approach offers improved service, better security and stronger assurance about the identity of the parties involved. By routing payment requests through secure, authenticated channels, Request to Pay significantly reduces the risk of misdirected payments and push payment fraud.
Preventing fraud is a top priority for many billers, including those in telecoms. Over a third of the billers Mastercard surveyed said they plan to increase investment in fraud prevention. Other priority areas include data security, analytics, instant payments and error prevention — all domains where Request to Pay can add value.
Consumers are receptive to these improvements as well. Many of those interviewed — including gig workers and people with irregular incomes — expressed interest in using secure mobile chat services to receive and pay bills quickly and safely.
Chasing and resolving disputed payments imposes substantial costs on billers. Services like Request to Pay aim to deliver greater transparency, certainty and efficiency in billing, reducing disputes and the associated expenses.
For telecoms providers, adopting Request to Pay presents an opportunity to enhance billing experiences while protecting customers’ earnings and personal finances from fraudsters. At Mastercard, the goal is to enable safe, secure and convenient payment options. Our Request to Pay service supports telecoms companies, financial institutions, utilities and other billers with a more effective and secure way to communicate and transact with their customers.
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