SMALL businesses will be able to help protect themselves from scammers as part of a free fraud awareness masterclass.

The Co-operative Bank’s fraud and cyber security team will be joined by experts from Greater Manchester Police and the Federation of Small Business (FSB) in a special webinar session.

Last year, fraud and cybercrime cost UK businesses £824m.

As fraud and cybercrime is on the rise The Co-operative Bank has vowed to support the small business community to recognise scams and take actions and steps to help protect themselves from falling victim.

The online session is being run in partnership with the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and will take place on Wednesday at 10am.

The webinar will include:

• An overview of the key fraud, scams and cyber-attacks that a business could be targeted with and, tips, support and guidance from our panel of leading experts.

• Practical information that could help prevent a business from being targeted by fraudsters, which is even more vital as small businesses try to recover from the economic impact of coronavirus.

• Questions can also be submitted to the panel of experts question before the session so specific topics or issues can be discussed during the event.

For those that cannot make the session it will be recorded and available via the Co-operative Bank's website afterwards.

Relationship banking director at The Co-operative Bank, Sarah Barker, said: "This is such a challenging time for the small business community and when so many are still weathering the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak the additional impacts of a fraud, scam or cyber-attack at this time could have a significantly greater impact on a small business than ever before.

"There is a constant need to be vigilant for scams and frauds but with so much to consider and work though for small businesses as many are now re-opening and recommencing operations, opportunistic criminals could try to take advantage.

"We want to do what we can to support SMEs who could be targeted with what are increasingly sophisticated and complex scams and fraud attempts.

"In partnership with the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and with the expertise of speakers from the Greater Manchester Police and Federation of Small Business we hope we can give practical tips and guidance that might help small businesses from falling victim.”

To register for the session click here.

For those that cannot make the session it will be recorded and available via the Co-operative Bank's website afterwards.