Cross-party Treasury committee chairman Mel Stride said that banks have signed up for a voluntary code to reimburse fraud victims who do enough to protect themselves, there is not sufficient regulation governing social media and other websites.

"The government should look at some kind of arrangement that makes the polluter pay. Online platforms are hosting this stuff, not really putting enough effort into weeding it out, and indeed financially benefiting because they're getting the advertising revenues," Stride said.

Facebook (now known as Meta), Twitter and Microsoft had committed to requiring potential financial services advertisers authorised by the Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, following similar steps taken by Google, TikTok and Amazon.

But the report said there was no set timeline for these changes and other major online platforms have not followed suit.

Britain has become a global epicentre for bank scams, Reuters reported in October, with a record $1 billion stolen in the first six months of this year, up 30 per cent from the same period in 2020.

"We think the government's been too slow in various areas to really catch up with it...it's people being, quietly in many cases, defrauded of large amounts of money, people losing life savings," Stride said.