Starling Bank has launched a Scam Intelligence AI agent within its assistant, targeting more than ten fraud types for five million customers.
The feature is now available to the bank's five million customers. Its development drew on input from fraud advocate Cecilie Fjellhøy, who lost nearly GBP 200.000 to a romance scam later documented in Netflix's 'The Tinder Swindler'. The launch coincides with UK Finance figures showing that authorised push payment (APP) fraud losses rose 19% in 2025 to GBP 576.4 million. Romance fraud losses increased 23% over the same period, while investment fraud losses grew 40% year on year.
The Scam Intelligence AI agent forms part of Starling Assistant, which the bank launched in March 2026. The assistant enables customers to use voice or natural language to manage finances, plan transfers, and ask questions about their spending. When a customer indicates they are about to make a payment, the function analyses the surrounding context and poses a series of targeted questions to surface potential fraud indicators before any funds are transferred.
In addition, if a customer states they intend to send GBP 3.000 to cover a new partner's flight ticket, for example, the agent will ask how they met, how long the relationship has been ongoing, and why the partner cannot cover the cost independently. It then assesses whether the situation matches a recognised fraud pattern and, if so, recommends that the customer speak with the bank's support team.
The tool runs on Google Cloud's Gemini model. Participation is opt-in, and all customer data is stored within Starling's Google Cloud environment and is not used for model training. An earlier version of the Scam Intelligence tool, introduced in 2025 and designed to identify fraudulent online marketplace listings, increased the rate at which customers cancelled suspicious marketplace payments by 300%.
Sector and government context
The UK Minister for Fraud, Lord Hanson, welcomed the launch and noted the government's GBP 250 million commitment under its Fraud Strategy to address fraud at a structural level. Starling's Chief Moreover, Customer and Banking Officer, Bernadette Smith, noted that in the absence of sufficient action from social media platforms, where many scams originate, the burden of fraud prevention falls on individuals and financial institutions. Harriet Rees, the bank's Chief Information Officer and the UK government's AI champion for financial services, said the tool is intended to drive behavioural change by prompting customers to pause and question their spending intentions before completing a transfer.
Cecilie Fjellhøy, who advised the development team based on her personal experience, noted that a bank is often better placed than friends or family to help a victim recognise fraudulent behaviour, as direct personal intervention can sometimes reinforce a scammer's influence rather than dispel it.
