Levels of fraud from taxpayer-backed Covid-19 loan schemes are around five times higher than typical figures, according to senior UK bankers.
Bosses at Lloyds and Santander told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that around 1% of bounce back loans have been taken out fraudulently.
David Oldfield, chief executive of Lloyds Commercial Banking, said his bank has seen 3% of applications rejected, with 2% of those approved later turning out to be fraudulent. Around two-thirds have subsequently been frozen.
He said: “That’s still a large number but as a percentage that’s about five times higher than we would normally see.
“We take fraud very seriously. I think we would all recognise that the design of that scheme was a trade-off versus the checks that we would be doing. We do screen every application.”
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Lloyds bank says fraud rate for COVID loans is five times normal levels
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