From May 2026, all banking establishments will have access to a new system to spot scams and best protect their customers from fraudulent direct debits.
Banking scams threaten French consumers more than ever. According to the government’s 2025 Cybercrime Survey, some scams have increased dramatically in the space of a year. Transfer fraud, which therefore involves a false transfer order or even misappropriation of RIB, has increased by 196%. The fake bank advisor scam, although well known to individuals, increased by 159%, while bank card fraud also increased by 96%.
Although we may be increasing our vigilance, these alarming figures prove the urgency of the situation: this is why the government has decided to make a new tool available to banking establishments, to try to stop the problem at the source. Each year, 280,000 bank accounts are affected by fraudulent direct debits, for an average loss of 450 euros, according to the Banque de France. But a new law, passed last November, will allow banks to avoid a large number of these scams before they even occur.
From this month of May, all banking establishments will have access to a new tool, deployed nationally by the Banque de France: the National File of Accounts at Risk of Fraud (FNC-RF). This is a document that lists accounts already involved in fraud. Concretely, after receiving a transfer order, your bank will be able to check the recipient’s IBAN in this file before agreeing to pay the funds. And if the account appears on the list, an alert is triggered: the bank can then stop the money transfer before it is too late, and warn the victim of the risk.
As indicated by the Ministry of the Economy, it is the banks themselves which will be responsible for “share their information and identify the bank details of accounts identified as suspicious” in the national file, allowing other banks to be aware of it. Because until now, each establishment managed the problem individually: a fraudulent account could be spotted and blocked by one, but continue to carry out transactions in another bank… which was therefore not aware of it.
From now on, thanks to this centralized register, scammers will have more difficulty hiding, and “every man for himself” will no longer exist. In addition, Urssaf will also have access to the FNC-RF to identify and report social security contribution fraud. The new law also provides for “strengthen the effectiveness of the national file of irregular checks (FNCI)” : banks will now be able to verify the regularity of a check before cashing it, while the issuing institution will be obliged to “report the bank details of the drawer in the event of rejection of the check for falsification or counterfeiting”.
Of course, these new tools should not replace consumer vigilance. Because we know, cybercriminals will always find new ways to thwart security systems. If a suspicious debit nevertheless slips through the cracks, you have 13 months to dispute it with your bank. Several remedies are possible to try to recover the funds, in particular by filing a complaint and carefully preserving all evidence of the fraud.
