A Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the wealth management company found that the number of financial investment frauds reported to Fraud Action rose to 17,538 in 2020 but despite the rising numbers, convictions for fraud in England and Wales, secured under the Fraud Act 2006, has fallen by 10% on average year-on-year since 2011.

The level of convictions has dropped to its lowest level seen since the Act was first introduced.

In 2019, there was 3.7m incidents of fraud in England and Wales but only one in five of these cases was reported to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) and of these, around 5,000 led to a conviction under the Fraud Act.