Meta’s Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) is a pilot that lets participating banks share intelligence about suspected scams with Meta, connecting what banks see with activity on Meta’s platforms. In September 2024, Stop Scams UK named NatWest and Metro Bank as the first UK banks in the pilot. The organisations later reported that the six-month pilot was associated with about 20,000 scammer-run accounts being removed; that figure is a reported programme output, not independent evidence that overall scam losses fell.
What is Meta’s FIRE programme?
FIRE stands for Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange. Stop Scams UK described it as a threat-intelligence sharing programme for financial institutions: banks share information directly with Meta so the platform can act against suspected scammers and help protect users. The idea is to connect information held by a bank with signals Meta may see on its services.
On 25 September 2024, Stop Scams UK announced the UK pilot’s expansion and named NatWest and Metro Bank as its first participating banks. It said more banks were expected to join. NatWest said in October 2024 that further banks would be onboarded in the coming months, but the available announcements do not establish a definitive current list of UK participants.
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 scammer-run accounts, from 185 URLs shared. They also cited disruption of a concert-ticket scam network targeting people in the UK and the US. These are outcomes reported by the organisations announcing the programme, not results from an independent evaluation.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The published accounts do not quantify losses prevented or establish that FIRE reduced total scam losses or the overall prevalence of scams in the UK. Account removals and disruption of a named network indicate activity taken against suspected abuse; they do not, on their own, show how many people avoided loss or whether scammers moved elsewhere.
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. It calls for information sharing and action against fraud at source.
A bank and a social platform may see different parts of a scam’s path: for example, a bank may receive information about suspected fraud connected to customers, while Meta may observe activity on its platforms. Sharing relevant intelligence could help participants identify connected activity sooner. That is the rationale implied by the programme description and the government’s cross-channel account, not a measured effect established by the pilot.
The Fraud Strategy, citing Citizens Advice, says 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 a three-month period in 2022. These are measures of exposure, not confirmed victim counts.
How FIRE differs from the government’s payment-delay measure
FIRE is an information-sharing arrangement between financial institutions and Meta. It is not the same as the separate bank-payment measure announced by the government on 3 October 2024. That announcement concerned proposed rules allowing banks to delay a suspicious payment for up to an additional 72 hours to investigate when there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud; it also described customer-notification and compensation requirements. One mechanism shares threat intelligence across organisations, while the other gives a bank time to investigate an individual payment.
Has FIRE expanded beyond the UK?
In December 2024, Meta said FIRE had initially launched with banks in the UK and Australia and had expanded to include banks and consortia around the world. Meta described the goal as sharing information about potential scam activity to improve insight into scam lifecycles and strengthen proactive detection and integrity systems. Its account does not provide a complete country list, a full participant roster or an independently measured effectiveness figure.
A separate Stop Scams UK joint statement in March 2025 listed a first wave of signatories supporting further intelligence-sharing pilots: Amazon, Barclays UK, BT, Google, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Match Group, Meta, Monzo, Santander and Three. The statement described broader collaboration across finance, technology and telecommunications; it did not say that every signatory joined FIRE specifically.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What should consumers take from the partnership?
FIRE is an institutional effort to share scam intelligence, not a consumer service or guarantee that every fraudulent account or offer will be detected. Consumers should continue to treat unexpected messages, social-media offers and requests to pay with caution, and verify a person or business through a contact route they find independently. The programme’s reported account removals show actions its participants say they took, but do not establish the effect on an individual’s risk or total scam losses.
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