EU anti-fraud rules may block shoppers from buying online

Online transactions over this amount will need to be verified by text, call or app record for Mr Watson dating to 2013. He said this had been a temporary phone he had bought for emergencies and no longer owned. “If Nationwide had told me this, I would have been able to explain immediately,” he added.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, delayed the introduction of the rules until 2022 but many banks have started implementing the rules already.

Some high street banks already offer alternative ways for customers to authenticate payments. TSB account holders can verify transactions through their landline and Lloyds and Halifax allow customers to do so via a phone call as well as via text or mobile banking app.

Nationwide does not currently offer any other options but said it would have alternatives in place before the rules came into force in 2021.

Online shoppers are also failing to The new rules will apply to people who shop on websites such as Amazon or who pay their bills online The number of complaints Resolver received this month about the changes complete payments in areas poorly serviced by mobile networks. Martha Thierion de Monclin has struggled with this problem for years, ever since her bank in France introduced mobile phone verification codes.

“I live abroad but regularly come back to the Cotswolds to visit my 82-year-old mother,” she said. “Whenever I want to buy something online, I have to leg it up the hill, wait for reception to kick in, receive the text, leg it back down again, and hope the operation hasn’t timed out.”

She is worried about how her mother will cope when the rules are in place here.

Some customers, unaware of the changes, have been unable to make payments because they have not updated their contact details with the bank, meaning verification codes have been sent to old phone numbers.

Martyn James of Resolver, a consumer complaints service, said the new rules punished those who were not tech savvy.

“Some of the banks have been unprepared and haven’t yet found a way for people to verify payments without a mobile phone,” he said.

“This lack of insight means we risk creating another division in society where the less well-off, older, more vulnerable or isolated communities are prevented from doing basic things like shopping or paying bills.”

Mr James estimated that a fifth of the population would struggle to make payments as a result of the restrictive plans. He said he had already received more than 50 complaints about the changes since they started to be introduced this month.

The rules aim to protect consumers from falling victim to credit card fraud, which scammed Britons out of £671.4m last year.