Dealing With Authorised Push Payment (APP) Fraud In The UAE

What is authorised push payment (APP) fraud?

APP fraud is where victims are induced by a fraudster to make a payment from their own account to an account controlled by the fraudster. This type of fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent and more sophisticated.

The type of potential victims is not limited to private individuals. Businesses of all sizes, and even governments, are frequently among the victims.

A common method of carrying out APP fraud is via compromised company email accounts whereby the fraudster intercepts a legitimate email chain between business-to-business parties and requests that the payer uses the payee's updated bank account details for an upcoming (legitimate) payment. In this instance, the fraudster communicates via an email address which appears to be a genuine email address of the payee, but with a very minor difference which is undetected by the payer. In one recent case in the context of a construction project, we have seen this