Richard Laycock

Payments are the engine of government — friction is the sand in the gears. It slows revenue, increases operational drag, and drains millions from public finances. The biggest costs in government payments are the ones no one sees.

The Hidden Cost of Government Payments: Design, Behaviour, and Friction

Fraudsters have upgraded. And it’s not just organised crime — it’s ordinary citizens under financial pressure exploiting system weaknesses at scale. Synthetic IDs. Coordinated fraud rings. Cross‑channel exploitation. Manipulated documentation. Plus a surge in opportunistic fraud driven by cost‑of‑living pressures, rising hardship and loopholes that are simply too easy to abuse. This isn’t innovation. It’s people taking advantage of systems that were never designed to learn. Yet some...