Commenting on Tuesday’s government announcement on children and social media, Willem Wellinghoff, Chief Compliance Officer at Ecommpay, said:
“Ecommpay welcomes the Prime Minister’s commitment to deliver a ‘game-changer’ policy on children’s safety online. This is an important and overdue moment, and we strongly support any initiative that compels the major tech and social media platforms to take greater responsibility for the welfare of young people on their services.
“From our position in the financial ecosystem, however, we see something that the current debate does not yet fully capture; fraud and scams that eventually land on the financial services sector very often begin not at the point of payment, but far earlier – on social media. Young people are deliberately and systematically targeted by fraudsters and scammers through the very platforms now under scrutiny. By the time a victim reaches a financial transaction, the manipulation and deception has already taken place. The financial services sector is dealing with the consequences of harms that originate elsewhere in the chain.
“This is why we would strongly urge government to ensure that the approach to online fraud does not sit solely within financial services regulation. The government’s own Fraud Strategy 2026–2029 rightly recognises the need for a system-wide, cross-sector response built on the pillars of disruption, safeguarding and effective enforcement – and we believe that spirit must now be applied directly to the social media environment in which so many fraud journeys begin.
“Protecting children from harmful content and protecting them from financial predators are not separate agendas. We call on government, regulators, the technology sector, society and the financial industry to collaborate far more actively on this issue because no single sector can solve it alone. The tech giants must be part of that conversation, and must be held to the same standards of duty of care that we in financial services are already expected to meet.”
