Barclays announces new controls for debit cards to fight fraud

Barclays is fighting back against fraud by offering its users more power over when and how their debit cards can be used. According to its announcement, customers will be able to instantly turn a card "on" or "off," disallowing remote purchases. They will also be able to set their own daily ATM withdrawal limits through the Barclays Mobile Banking app.

The new controls are part of the £10 million nationwide drive to increase the public’s awareness of financial fraud risks.

"Fraud is often wrongly described as an invisible crime, but the effects are no less damaging to people’s lives," says Ashok Vaswani, Chief Executive of Barclays UK.

"As a society our confidence in using digital technology to shop, pay our bills and connect with others has grown faster than our knowledge of how to do so safely. This has created a 'digital safety gap' which is being exploited by criminals. I believe the need to fight fraud has now become a national resilience issue, and we all need to boost our digital safety levels in order to close the gap."

Describing the current fraud situation in the country, the report says London, Bristol, and Birmingham are the "scam capitals" in the UK.

Most fraud cases are reported in London, Bristol and Manchester, while Liverpool reported a "particularly high" number of impersonation scams.

Highly educated Londoners are, surprisingly, the UK’s most vulnerable group.

"That is why we are launching this new national campaign on digital safety, and we will do all in our power to arm people with the tools and information they need," Vaswani adds.

"But we also need to support and encourage the public to take action to protect themselves, such as changing passwords regularly. They can take the first step by completing our new free online quiz and discover how to boost their defenses."

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