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Meta’s Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) lets participating financial institutions share information about suspected scams with Meta, connecting what banks see with activity on Meta’s platforms. In the UK pilot announced in September 2024, Stop Scams UK named NatWest and Metro Bank as the first bank participants. The organisations later reported that the six-month pilot was associated with the removal of about 20,000 scammer-run accounts linked to 185 URLs shared.
What is Meta’s FIRE programme?
FIRE stands for Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange. Stop Scams UK describes it as a threat-intelligence sharing programme for financial institutions: banks share information about suspected financial scams with Meta so the company can act against scammers and protect users. The goal is to connect different views of a scam, rather than leave a bank or platform to identify it using only the activity visible to that organisation.
Meta said in December 2024 that FIRE had initially launched with banks in the UK and Australia and had expanded to include banks and consortia internationally. Meta described the exchange as a way to improve insight into scam lifecycles and strengthen proactive detection and integrity systems. Its account did not give a complete country or participant list, so it does not establish the programme’s current full membership. Meta’s December 2024 overview of online scams and FIRE
Which UK banks joined the pilot?
On 25 September 2024, Stop Scams UK announced that NatWest and Metro Bank were the first UK banks taking part in the pilot. NatWest’s October 2024 account said more banks were expected to be onboarded in the coming months. Those announcements identify the initial participants; they do not provide a definitive current list of UK banks participating in FIRE. Stop Scams UK’s announcement of the FIRE expansion · NatWest’s October 2024 account
What did the six-month pilot report?
Stop Scams UK and NatWest reported that information shared by NatWest, Metro Bank and Meta during the six-month pilot was associated with Meta removing approximately 20,000 accounts run by scammers, from 185 URLs shared. They also said the collaboration disrupted a significant concert-ticket scam network targeting people in the UK and the US.
These are outputs reported by the organisations involved, not results from an independent evaluation. The available accounts do not quantify losses prevented or establish that FIRE reduced overall scam losses or the prevalence of scams in the UK.
Why share information across banks and platforms?
Scams can move across channels. The UK government’s 2023 Fraud Strategy describes fraud involving texts, calls, emails, social media, false advertisements and websites that impersonate trusted brands. A bank may encounter information about a suspected financial scam that is not visible to a platform, while a platform may see abusive accounts or content that a bank cannot. Linking those perspectives could help participants identify and act on parts of the same scam. That is the rationale suggested by the programme’s design and the government’s cross-channel account; it is not a measured impact finding about FIRE.
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The strategy cites Citizens Advice as finding that two in every three adults are targeted by online fraud. It also cites Ofcom research that more than 40 million UK adults were targeted by at least one suspicious scam text or call in three months in 2022. These figures describe exposure, not confirmed victims. HM Government’s Fraud Strategy
How FIRE differs from a bank payment delay
FIRE is an information-sharing arrangement between financial institutions and Meta. It should not be confused with the separate payment-delay measure announced by the government on 3 October 2024. That announcement concerned proposed rules allowing banks, where there were reasonable grounds to suspect fraud, to delay a suspicious payment by up to an additional 72 hours while investigating. It also described customer notification and compensation requirements. A payment delay gives a bank time to investigate an individual transaction; FIRE is about sharing threat intelligence to help identify scam activity across institutions and platforms. Neither measure is presented as a substitute for the other. HM Treasury’s announcement on proposed bank powers
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How FIRE fits a wider anti-fraud effort
In a joint statement published on 31 March 2025, Stop Scams UK listed Amazon, Barclays UK, BT, Google, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Match Group, Meta, Monzo, Santander and Three as signatories in a first wave of support for its intelligence-sharing pilots. The statement describes a broader collaboration across finance, technology and telecoms; it does not say that every signatory joined FIRE specifically. Stop Scams UK’s March 2025 joint statement
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