UK scopes plan to grant banks access to welfare claimants’ accounts

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The ministers examine the proposals to grant banks access to all accounts of the benefits, because they are trying to perform fraud to repair the “gap opening” in the UK social welfare system.
Officials in the Ministry of Labor and Retirement Pensions were asked to investigate the proposal as a possible way to ensure nursing The receivers do not have more money than they claim, according to the people who have seen this.
One of the officials said: “We are looking for whether it is possible to access bank bankers accounts in the same way that they can reach all your accounts when applying for a real estate loan,” said one of the officials.
The draft law of public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) will require lenders to inform government If they find evidence of excessive payment by the state or violations of the rules of eligibility, including if the claimants keep more than 16,000 pounds – then providing global credit – in the account in which they receive their advantages.
Under the legislation, which is transmitted through Parliament, the government will have powers to recover interest funds or excessive payments from individual accounts without a court order.
But the ministers are concerned that the fraudsters will remain able to circumvent the rules by keeping money in various accounts in their name, which banks have no duty to scrutinize, according to the people who have been informed of the matter.
One of them said: “There is a great hole in the system.”
The person added that officials were investigating whether the principles of open banking services could be applied to the social welfare system. The model has been used by mortgage lenders since 2018 to give banks only access to customer account balances and the history of transactions.
They added, however, that the domain exercise was at an early stage and was unlikely to be part of the fraud, error and current recovery bill.
It was about 8.6 billion pounds due to fraud and error payments in the fiscal year until April 2024, according to government data.
Nearly 3.7 million working people get health-related benefits, an increase of 1.2 million compared to February 2020, before the Covid-19s.
The UK spends about 65 billion pounds annually on deficit and deficit subsidies, more than in the defense, according to the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords.
The United Kingdom, the Industry Authority, has retracted the new fraud measures, on the pretext that the requirements of banks can collide with their organizational obligations to protect the financially weak consumers.
“The proposed approach to recovering money from bank accounts in the draft public authorities law needs careful study, to ensure that there are no risks to vulnerable customers and is compatible with the current organizational commitment. Besides looking at bank accounts, we believe that the government can also enhance controls to prevent fraud and error in “Daniel Cichoki, director of economic crime policy in the United Kingdom, said.”
Carla Broadinsu Ruiz, director and official of the call to international privacy, said the batch to expand the scope of government authorities was “very worrying”, and warned that “overcoming basic rights in privacy and legal procedures.”
“In principle, it is a generalized monitoring mechanism.” “[The government] It will be on a fishing trip looking for the suspects without necessarily the reasons for doubt. “
A government spokesman said: “The government offers the largest fraud campaign in one generation, which provides the taxpayer 1.5 billion pounds over the next five years, which is part of the broader plans that will provide 8.6 billion pounds by 2030,” said a government spokesman.
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2025-02-20 22:00:00