What's the difference between fraud and marketing? Paul Maskall and Chris Skinner weigh in

When Paul Maskall, Strategic Fraud Prevention and Behavioural Lead at UK Finance, asked the audience what the difference between fraud and marketing is during his talk on “The Psychology of Online Fraud” at the recent Open Banking Expo in London, it sounded a bit provocative.

As Rik found out, the similarities are much more than most marketers would like to admit!

Rik summarised the key insights from the session ⁠in this blog post here⁠:
https://thebankingscene.com/opinions/...

This in turn inspired Chris Skinner (world-renowned troublemaker and strategist who specialises in the future of business, technology, and finance) to publish ⁠his own take on the topic here⁠:
https://thefinanser.com/2025/11/whats...

Rik caught up with both of them in this two-part session to dig deeper into the topic.

By the way: Rik also convinced Paul to join us on May 28, 2026 for a talk at The Banking Scene Conference 2026 Brussels: https://thebankingscene.com/events/tb...

Key moments in this episode:
00:00 Introduction to fraud prevention and psychology (Paul Maskall)
03:56 The intersection of marketing and fraud
06:53 Emotional engagement in fraud prevention
12:51 Motivating the public against fraud
15:55 Campaigns and strategies for fraud prevention
18:24 Fraud vs marketing (Chris Skinner)
21:27 The role of digital identity in fraud prevention
23:54 The impact of social engineering on fraud
26:56 Accountability in fraud - who is to blame?