Meet the grad fighting fraudsters to ensure your money doesn’t get nicked

Kind of an Avenger for your bank account

| UPDATED

Online banking is part and parcel of daily life – but how often does the fact there are fraudsters constantly trying to break into your account to steal your cash, actually cross your mind?

We spoke to the grad at Barclays whose job it is to make sure your precious money stays locked up, and asked him about what you can do to make sure you keep your loan out of harm’s way.


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Alex, Manchester, Business Studies and Economics grad

Alex in the middle

How did working at Barclays come about?

I first started working at Barclays when I got onto one of the internship programmes during my first year. I applied through the application process, but I would really advise people to go for their Spring Week – it’s totally worth it as it fast forwards you onto their internships.

I now work on the Digital Fraud Strategy team. As you can imagine, I went into the role with absolutely no experience. Now I’m at the forefront fighting fraudsters and protecting Barclays customers from falling victim to fraud – especially through combatting social engineering. This is where fraudsters play on the consumer’s emotions to get them to transfer their money.


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That’s terrifying – what’s an example of social engineering?

So, you would get a call from someone pretending to be your internet provider for example. They’ll say there’s something wrong with your computer and that they can help by getting remote access to ‘fix it’. They’ll then send you a refund as compensation, only to contact you later to say they’ve sent you too much. When you login to your bank account, they’ll be able to see your details and from there steal your money.

It’s quite complex because it seems so legitimate, but they’re just using this technique to get into your mind. It’s a horrible thing to play on someone’s emotions like that, but it’s more commonplace than you’d think.

What would be your top tip for keeping safe when banking online?

Always check a website is secure before you enter any account or card details. Look for ‘https’ at the start of the web address and the padlock or unbroken key icon at the top of the page next to the address bar.

So what does your day-to-day look like?

Considering I only graduated last year, I was given a lot of responsibility from the get-go. Part of my job includes managing the losses that it costs us on the front line while continuously analysing different cases and investigating what went wrong.

I also work in partnership with the analytics team – whenever they see any fraudulent trends emerging, we move extremely quickly to stop them. We introduce new rules into the systems and then off the back of them, create marketing collateral to educate customers to be aware of these latest trends. 


Keen to work in treasury, finance, fraud or compliance? 

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That sounds intense…

It’s fast-paced but I absolutely love it. I get to work very closely with every single function of the bank because digital fraud is something that affects us all. I also have the right level of support – this role requires a lot of specialised knowledge, so to have a manager and team that is so supportive makes a huge difference.

What’s the culture like?

You’d be surprised to hear that it’s quite similar to that of a start-up, just in a large corporation – everyone is so open and there is a real level of trust which makes the team thrive.

This is really reflected in some of the perks – Barclays supports you getting professional qualifications, pay for the whole thing and even offer two weeks paid leave to ensure we have enough time for revision.

For students who think that going into a large corporation is a set path, with set tasks that you do everyday as a junior, it’s just not the case at Barclays. The bank sees us as the future leaders of tomorrow, and they invest quite a lot of resources into us to make sure that we have everything we need to develop ourselves.


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