Japan's National Police Agency will start running its bank fraud-information sharing scheme as a single national channel on November 9, 2026. The agency will collect data on accounts used to receive fraud proceeds from all 47 prefectural police forces and pass it to the financial institutions that sign agreements with it. The agency's organised crime division II announced the change on November 5.
What changes
The scheme began with Saitama prefectural police in October 2024 and was extended across the country's police forces. Until now it has run between individual prefectural forces and regional banks and similar lenders.
The NPA is adding two things. It is signing new agreements directly with city banks and similar institutions, and it will gather the abused-account information itself and supply it centrally to every bank that has signed. [earlier tokyo brief coverage link placeholder]
How the flow works
Police first identify an abused account, defined as one that received fraud proceeds, from a victim's consultation or report. They give that account information to the bank. The bank checks transfer data within its own network for customers who have sent money to that account, and passes those customers' details to police as potential victims. Police then contact them.
The NPA says this lets police find potential victims more quickly and reliably than a bank's ordinary monitoring would, and limits further losses. That is the agency's own assessment; the release gives no detection results to test it.
The numbers behind it
Special-fraud losses in 2025 reached ¥325.74bn, a record. Through the end of August this year they were about ¥236.1bn, roughly 33% above the same period a year earlier. The NPA says that, on the current path, the year would exceed 2025.
By method of handing over the money, bank transfers made up 56.9% of the total. The NPA says deposit accounts remain the main tool for moving stolen funds, and calls closer police-bank cooperation urgent.
Who is in
Thirty institutions are signing agreements with the NPA, all dated November 5: city banks, internet-only banks and other lenders. The annex includes trust banks as well as PayPay Bank and other online banks. The NPA says the signing banks will also publicise the scheme.
The release describes agreements between the police and each institution. It does not describe a statutory duty, and it says nothing about freezing accounts. It also does not say how the new national feed fits with the existing prefectural arrangements with regional banks.