Bank of England and IMF heads warn cyber-fraud threatens trust in finance

Mixed · 2The heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund warned on 14 October that rising cyber-attacks and online fraud risk undermining trust in the financial system. 1 2 Mixed · 2Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva were speaking on a panel about online fraud at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok. 1 2 Mixed · 2Bailey pointed to reports of self-replicating AI agents hijacking personal devices and to a cyber-attack on French supermarkets that pushed refrigeration temperatures to 50C. He said the AI debate was at heart about trust in technology and human control, and that "If we don’t have trust in money, we don’t operate as a society." 1 2

Mixed · 2Bailey said fraud is now often carried out through social media platforms and apps, and that these companies must be involved. He contrasted them with newspapers, which are legally responsible for what they publish, saying platforms are open to everybody with "no real liability" for what is on them. 1 2 Mixed · 2According to the Guardian, Bailey added that he was not pointing the finger at anyone but that "there is responsibility all around". City A.M. quoted him saying the problem "cannot be done by finance alone". 1 2 Mixed · 2Bailey also said the technology criminals use to attack the system can be used to defend it: "this technology is arming the offence but it can also arm the defence, and it must do." 1 2

Mixed · 2Georgieva said the toll of cyber-fraud could lead people to opt out of the formal financial system. Recalling growing up behind the iron curtain, when people kept dollars in a shoebox under the bed, she warned that without getting ahead of the speed, scale and cost of fraud, "we may end up with lots of people with shoeboxes under their beds". 1 2 Left · 1The Guardian reported that Georgieva said the threat was particularly acute for people on the fringes of the financial system, and that the panel launched a new set of international principles for avoiding cyber fraud in financial institutions, called the Bangkok blueprint. 1 Mixed · 2The remarks followed the IMF's warning on Tuesday that it had raised its assessment of global financial stability risk to "elevated", citing the possibility of a big cyber-attack alongside higher borrowing costs and the risk of an AI-driven share price crash. 1 2

Right · 1City A.M. added that Bailey was himself the target of AI-generated scam ads in June, deepfakes falsely depicting him fighting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage that circulated on X and directed users to fraudulent websites, and that he has said the Bank found them "very hard" to track down and remove. 2