Nationwide confirms it will pay £100 into customers' bank accounts

Building society confirms customers will get the full amount back if they are targeted by scammers

Nationwide has confirmed it will pay £100 to some customers who fall victim to fraudsters. From today, October 7, banks must will be forced to reimburse customers who lose money to fraud.

However, banks did have an option to charge a £100 excess to victims, in essence charging them. Nationwide is one of four banks to confirm it will not charge the excess and will pay back the full amount to victims.

The others named so far are Virgin Money, TSB and AIB. A quarter of all fraud cases are under £100, meaning there is a risk some customers with other banks may get no money back at all.

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Those with the four banks would get the full amount back should it be under £100. The new rules come in response to surging cases of authorised push payment (APP) scams in recent years.

This is when someone sends a text or email claiming to be someone they are not and asking for money. Messages may often appear to be legitimate.

The new rules from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) make it a mandatory requirement for banks to cover consumers’ losses from APP fraud up to £85,000, as long as they haven’t been “grossly negligent”

Commenting on the research, Liz Edwards, money expert at Finder, said: “Our research reveals the refund lottery that fraud victims are now facing. Victims’ protection has been squeezed at both ends.

"When the upper refund limit was cut to just £85,000, many in the industry, including the PSR, justified this by saying it would still cover over 99% of claims. But because so many banks are now saying they won’t cover - or may not cover - the first £100, that 99% must surely be lower.

“Based on 2023 fraud figures, more than 58,000 cases would have resulted in no refund if all companies had applied the excess, and now only four of the major providers have confirmed they won’t. £100 is a lot of money to many people. It doesn’t help that 12 banks said they might apply it - customers don’t know where they stand.”