The UK government plans to ban cold calling on all financial products, so that anyone who receives a telephone call about cryptocurrency or insurance will automatically know it is a scam.

The new anti-fraud strategy will also outlaw so-called ‘SIM farms’, which enable criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people simultaneously.

The government also said it will work with communications regulator Ofcom to stop cases of spoofing, where scammers trick people into thinking they are speaking to banks or legitimate businesses.

Banks may also be given more time to process payments to allow suspicious payments to be properly investigated and stop people becoming victims of fraud.

To support these goals, the government said it will invest £30 million in a reporting centre and will launch a new National Fraud Squad led by the National Crime Agency and the City of London Police.

Additionally, the government said it was working with partners overseas to stop international crime as well as teaming up with tech firms to make it easier to report online fraud.

”Fraud now accounts for over 40% of crime. It costs us nearly £7 billion a year and we know these proceeds are funding organised crime and terror. What’s more, new technologies are making these scams easier to do and harder to police,” said prime minister Rishi Sunak.

He added: “Our plan will help protect you and your loved ones from these scams and the predators who perpetrate them. The time has come to put the fraudsters out of business.”

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