New rules will mean that the onus of reporting card, cheque and online banking fraud will be on financial institutions rather than consumers.
Following discussions between the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the financial sector, the change was made in order to reduce the level of bureaucracy in the recording of fraud.
From now on banks and other financial institutions will become the first point of contact for these kinds of fraud, with consumers reporting to them rather than the police. Then the financial institutions will themselves be responsible for passing the information on to the police.
Sandra Quinn of Apacs commented: "This change simply removes an additional level of reporting and will provide greater consistency for the reporting of fraud losses in the UK.
"Apacs will provide the Home Office with the industry's fraud figures for cheque, plastic and online banking fraud losses."
These losses will then be used to compile a more accurate picture of fraud in the UK.
According to Apacs statistics, there were more than 700,000 cases of card fraud last year. Last week it was revealed that UK shoppers at discount store TK Maxx could have had their credit card information stolen by fraudsters.
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