As push payment fraud balloons, a scheme is coming into force to help those tricked by criminals’ increasingly sophisticated tactics

Criminals who targeted Françoise Schorosch’s father knew how to lull the elderly man into a false sense of security. “The sender of the email was someone impersonating me and asking for money,” she says.

By mimicking how his daughter opens and signs off emails in German, but otherwise writes mostly in English, the fraudsters led him to think he was helping her with money to buy her first property. He is one of many thousands of people who, each year, are tricked into sending money to bank accounts operated by criminals.

Affected individuals can expect to be reimbursed within five business days of making their claim.

There will be a maximum compensation of £85,000. This has been reduced from £415,000 after lobbying from the payments industry.

There is an optional £100 excess that firms can apply to a claim – though some banks, such as TSB, have already pledged to waive it. And the PSR says this excess cannot be applied to “vulnerable” consumers.

There will be a time limit of 13 months on claims.

Once a bank or payment company has given the customer a refund, the financial institution can then claim half of the money back from the bank used by the criminal to receive it.