Facebook owner Meta forms data-sharing pact with UK banks to counter scams

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1 year ago

October 2, 2024

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Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Facebook parent company Meta on Wednesday said that it’s working with two leading banks in the U.K. on an information-sharing arrangement to help protect consumers from fraud.

Meta said it was expanding its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIPE) to enable U.K. banks to directly share information with the social media giant, in a bid to help it detect and take down scamming accounts and coordinated fraud schemes.

Meta said that the tech has already been tested with multiple lenders in the U.K. In one example, Meta says it was able to take down 20,000 accounts from scammers engaged in a concert ticket scam network targeting people in the U.K. and U.S., thanks to data shared by British lenders NatWest and Metro Bank.

NatWest and Metro Bank are the only banks in the U.K. that are currently part of the fraud information-sharing pact, but more are set to join later on, according to Meta.

“This work has already seen us take action against thousands of accounts run by scammers, indicating the importance of banks and platforms working together to tackle this societal issue,” Nathaniel Gleicher, global head of counter-fraud at Meta, said in a statement Wednesday.

“We will only beat these criminals if we work together and share relevant information related to scams. Financial institutions can share unique information with us which we can in turn use to train our systems to take action against more scams globally,” Gleicher added.

Meta has long faced calls from banks in the U.K. to do more to stop scammers from running rampant on its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

In 2022, British digital bank Starling, which is backed by Goldman Sachs, began boycotting Meta and pulled advertising from its platforms over concerns that the company was failing to tackle fraudulent financial advertising.

Meta’s apps have been frequently abused by scammers attempting to swindle users out of their money through a variety of fraudulent schemes.

One of the most common forms of scams users encounter on the company’s platforms is authorized push payment fraud, through which criminals attempt to convince people to send them money by impersonating individuals or businesses that are selling a service.

Meta already has policies in place banning promotion of financial fraud, such as loan scams and schemes promising high rates of returns. The firm also prohibits ads that promise unrealistic results or guarantee a financial return.

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Alphabet to acquire data center and energy infrastructure company Intersect

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6 hours ago

December 22, 2025

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Alphabet to acquire data center and energy infrastructure company Intersect

Google parent Alphabet on Monday announced it will acquire Intersect, a data center and energy infrastructure company, for $4.75 billion in cash in addition to the assumption of debt.

Alphabet said Intersect’s operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster.

In recent years, Google has been embroiled in a fierce competition with artificial intelligence rivals, namely OpenAI, which kick-started the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments to build out the data centers it needs to meet growing demand for its technology.

With its acquisition of Intersect, Google is looking to keep up.

“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement.

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Google already had a minority stake in Intersect from a funding round that was announced last December. In a release at the time, Intersect said its strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate aimed to develop gigawatts of data center capacity across the U.S., including a $20 billion investment in renewable power infrastructure by the end of the decade.

Alphabet said Monday that Intersect will work closely with Google’s technical infrastructure team, including on the companies’ co-located power site and data center in Haskell County, Texas. Google previously announced a $40 billion investment in Texas through 2027, which includes new data center campuses in the state’s Haskell and Armstrong counties.

Intersect’s operating and in-development assets in California and its existing operating assets in Texas are not part of the acquisition, Alphabet said. Intersect’s existing investors including TPG Rise Climate, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners will support those assets, and they will continue to operate as an independent company.

Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect is expected to close in the first half of 2026, but it is still subject to customary closing conditions.

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