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Available for over a year

Banks say they've stopped frauds worth nearly £1.5m with a new initiative piloted in London. Called the Banking Protocol, it puts branch staff at the forefront of the fight against fraud, by training them to spot when a fraud might be happening, and police to act swiftly when alerted. In particular, bank employees are looking for customers behaving unusually, for example by taking out large sums of cash. A pilot scheme in London that started in October has already led to 178 calls being made by bank staff to police, with 16 arrests, and one conviction. The plan is now to extend the initiative to another 16 forces by the end of June, and then the rest of the country after that. One man told the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ how the suspicions of one bank teller saved him paying another £13,000 to a rogue builder.