Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of UK businesses have seen an increase in online fraud over the past 12 months, according to a new survey from global identity verification firm Veriff.
In the Veriff survey, around 73 per cent of UK fraud professionals said that online fraud has negatively affected their company’s revenue in the past year. For 64 per cent of businesses, this translated to revenue losses between one and nine per cent, effectively a ‘fraud tax’ costing them millions annually. More alarmingly, one in ten UK businesses (nine per cent) reported losses ranging from 10 per cent to more than 20 per cent of annual revenue.
The global identity verification firm’s UK Fraud Industry Pulse Survey, which polled 200 fraud professionals across financial services, technology, and retail sectors, also found that while 22 per cent of UK companies reported no revenue losses to fraud, over 88 per cent expect fraud to surge in 2025. Despite this anticipated threat, 52.5 per cent admit being only ‘somewhat prepared’ against these attacks.
“These findings paint a stark picture of the growing financial threat that online fraud poses to British businesses,” explained Iryna Bondar, senior fraud group manager at Veriff. “We’re seeing not just more fraud attempts, but increasingly sophisticated attacks that can bypass traditional security measures.
“Many companies that haven’t yet suffered significant losses are confusing luck with preparedness. This complacency, not strength, leaves them particularly vulnerable as AI-driven threats rapidly outpace legacy security tools. It’s not a question of if they’ll be targeted, but when.”
For 24 per cent of UK businesses, 11 to 25 per cent of monthly ID verification attempts are fraudulent, and 10 per cent of companies report that fraudulent attempts exceed 25 per cent of all verification volume. This vulnerability is particularly worrying amid the rise of ‘identity factories’, where criminals use AI to mass-produce synthetic identities.
Fighting fraud
With 61.5 per cent of UK businesses reporting an increase in AI-powered attacks and facing diverse threats ranging from malware (47.5 per cent) and impersonation fraud (44 per cent) to document fraud (31.5 per cent) and third-party coercion (20 per cent), no single security measure provides adequate protection.
Businesses are responding by adopting advanced technologies. Sixty per cent of UK organisations are already using AI and machine learning for fraud prevention, with another 25 per cent planning to adopt these technologies within the next 12 months.
Identity verification (IDV) and biometrics have emerged as critical components in fraud prevention strategies, with 80.5 per cent of UK decision-makers already incorporating these technologies into their security processes. Looking ahead, 78.5 per cent plan to increase their use of these tools in the coming year.
Customer expectations are also driving the need for stronger defences, with 71 per cent of UK respondents reporting that customers are increasingly demanding robust fraud prevention capabilities. “As fraudsters become more sophisticated, businesses must respond with equally advanced defences or risk losing both revenue and customer trust,” added Bondar. “The most effective strategy combines multiple layers of protection to make attacks too costly and time-consuming for criminals.”
The global nature of these threats is evident according to parallel surveys from Veriff, which revealed similar patterns in the US and Brazil, with 72 per cent of US and 70 per cent of Brazilian respondents also reporting increased fraud.
