Santander is urging customers and businesses to be on “high alert” with its latest scam warning.

The bank is sounding the alarm as criminals are impersonating Santander staff and calling clients’ employees.

According to the financial institution, the scammers are asking for remote access to their devices, their business’ online banking credentials and authorising payments into criminals’ bank accounts.

During September, the number of attempted impersonation scams reported to Santander by its Corporate and Commercial Banking clients jumped by 100 percent.

As of today, around 200 clients are estimated to be impacted by this elaborate example of fraud.

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Impersonation scams occur when victims receive a call or text rom someone purporting to be from your organisation’s bank, often from its fraud or security department.

The scam caller usually says that “fraudulent payment” has been made from their organisation’s bank account and directs them to a fake website impersonating the bank.

Once this has been done, the call either instructs you to install a remote access system onto your device or tells you to click on part of the fake website that, without you realising, installs remote access.

At this point, the scammer now has access to their victim’s device and will instruct the victim to log into their online banking to authorise transitions to stop the alleged fraud.

However, these transactions and an organisation’s funds will be sent straight to the criminal’s accounts

Chris Ainsley, the head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander UK, outlined the danger posed by this type of fraud.

He explained: “Impersonation scams are rampant and the criminals perpetrating these crimes can be particularly devious in their approach. Businesses should remain on high alert for this threat.

“Don’t trust people who make an unsolicited call to you and say they are from your bank, and make sure you validate any requests from cold callers by hanging up and contacting your bank using the phone number on the back of your bank card."

As part of this warning, Santander shared guidance to prevent people from falling victim to these scams.

This advice included not sharing passwords or security codes with anyone and not allowing devices to be remotely accessed.