Capita wins £50M fraud reporting contract with City of London cops – Source: go.theregister.com

Capita, which is still dealing with a digital break-in that exposed customers’ data to criminals, has scored a £50 million contract with the City of London police to run contact and engagement services for the force’s fraud reporting service.

The five-year agreement kicks off in 2024 and the territorial cops responsible for law enforcement in the financial district of the capital (aka the “square mile,” – the Met looks after Greater London) have an option to extend it for a further two years, should they wish to do so.

The work will see Capita provide an “end-to-end customer management process” to potential victims of fraud when they contract the service. The current iteration receives upwards of 350,000 calls and 2.3 unique visits to the website annually.

In a statement, Capita pledged to “deploy” its “customer experience model for identifying, managing and monitoring customers using data and specialist coaching to support potential victims of crime.”

It is also planning a “digital transformation” project to “improve access to different reporting channels, offer multi-lingual services, and introduce speech analytics to drive call quality.”

Capita added: “The digitally enabled model will provide a single source of information at all stages of each case while it is assessed, be more victim-centric and accessible, and use data analysis to deliver efficiencies.”

The outsourcer says 150 customers’ contact center personnel already working for the fraud reporting service will receive “enhanced victim support and empathy training” via a “bespoke” program. “They will be paid above real living wage salaries with home working contracts, reflecting Capita’s commitment to being a purpose-led responsible business and engaging and empowering our people.”

Capita might have some more experience of dealing with victims of fraud when the contract starts, given the unfortunate episode that started in March when criminals broke into Capita’s servers and spent more than a week on the inside.

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Around 0.1 percent of servers were accessed but Capita has since warned some customers that their data may have been exposed, including the UK’s largest private pension scheme.

The clean up effort will cost Capita some £20 million but one analyst warned the reputational damage could be higher still.

In other related security news, it also emerged last month that Capita had left an Amazon cloud bucket unsecured on the web. The container housed council tax and benefit data on local citizens. Some of the councils told us they are considering their next move, including potentially reviewing their contract with Capita. ®