Authorized Push Payment (APP) Fraud

Authorized push payment fraud, commonly abbreviated APP fraud, describes any scam where the victim is tricked into knowingly and willingly sending money via bank transfer to an account controlled by a criminal, believing the payment is legitimate. This differs from unauthorized fraud, where a criminal accesses an account without the victim's knowledge or consent; in APP fraud, the victim actively initiates the transfer themselves, which historically made banks less liable and recovery far harder, since the payment system worked exactly as the victim instructed.

APP fraud covers a wide family of scams including invoice and payment redirection fraud, romance scams, investment scams, purchase scams for goods that never arrive, and impersonation scams where a fraudster poses as a bank, police officer, or family member urging an urgent transfer. Because push payments (especially real-time transfer systems) settle quickly and are difficult to reverse once sent, recovering funds after an APP fraud transfer is completed is often unsuccessful, which has pushed regulators in several countries to introduce mandatory reimbursement schemes specifically for APP fraud victims.

Banks increasingly use payee name-matching ("confirmation of payee") checks and transaction risk warnings before large transfers to reduce APP fraud, but the most effective protection remains independently verifying any request to transfer money, particularly one involving urgency or a change to previously used payment details.