The European Union has reached a historic agreement introducing strict new obligations for digital platforms, social media companies and banks, making them jointly responsible for combating the rapid rise of online fraud.
After eight hours of intense negotiations, EU legislators struck a deal in the early hours of Thursday, finalising a regulatory package that has been described as one of the most significant reforms in Europe’s digital and financial oversight framework.
Under the new rules, global platforms such as Meta, TikTok and other major online networks will be legally liable if they fail to prevent or address fraudulent activity occurring on their services — including scams that originate from paid advertisements or verified accounts. The measures come in response to a surge in sophisticated digital fraud, often driven by artificial intelligence and social-engineering schemes that have cost European consumers billions.
The agreement emerged from long-standing political pressure within the European Parliament, where lawmakers argued that social media giants had benefited from vast profits while neglecting their responsibilities to protect users. At the same time, EU governments insisted that banks must also bear responsibility, particularly when their own security systems fail to detect suspicious transactions.
The final compromise places responsibility on both sectors. Banks will be required to fully reimburse victims who lose money to scammers impersonating legitimate financial institutions or when unauthorised transactions occur without the customer’s consent. Social media platforms, in turn, must compensate banks when fraud was enabled or not properly mitigated due to the platform’s failure to act on previously reported wrongdoing.
Senior EU officials welcomed the agreement as a major breakthrough. Supporters say it closes long-standing loopholes and brings the online world in line with financial regulations applied offline. Critics, however, including major US tech companies and the White House administration, warn that the rules may impose excessive burdens and conflict with the EU’s earlier Digital Services Act provisions.
The new framework builds on the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, both aimed at restricting illegal online content and curbing the power of tech giants. Industry associations, such as CCIA Europe, representing companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple, warned that the legislation risks creating contradictory compliance obligations and could force platforms into broad forms of monitoring they consider legally and technically problematic.
EU lawmakers, however, argue the opposite: that the measures are urgently needed to protect consumers, especially at a time when artificial intelligence tools are enabling unprecedented levels of online manipulation and economic crime. A formal vote is expected in the coming months, after which the rules will be gradually implemented across member states.
