Martin Threakall, Chief Operating Officer of Modulr, commenting on Pay.UK’s decision to decline the fraud levy:

“While consumer protection is of paramount importance, we believe a more collaborative and inclusive industry approach must be taken rather than a blanket fraud levy.

“As such, we welcome the Pay.UK decision to decline the fraud levy. When the change request was proposed by UK Finance, and while we are a member of UK Finance, we were not in agreement.

“As an alternative business payment provider, we would be asked to pay a certain amount on every Faster Payments transaction and asked to either absorb the cost ourselves or pass it on to our business customers. Not only would we be asked to contribute to a pot with no benefit to our customers, the extra cost would drain our ability to invest in continued fraud prevention. For this reason, we were concerned the proposed request change was anti-competitive.

“Fraud, by its nature, is seen by both the sending and receiving institutions so any solution must be proportionate and fair between parties. Industry initiatives, especially those addressing fraud, must take a collaborative approach and include the input of small providers as well as big. The financial services are no longer run by only the big banks.”