The article is factually incorrect when it talks about "SEPA payments", claiming they are a "pull" mechanism. What it probably meant to talk about, is SEPA Direct Debits -- where the counterpart charges your account, as opposed to you paying the counterpart. Given that these direct debit agreements are revokable at any point in time, I doubt the claims of very high fraud rate. A normal SEPA payment, is a "push" affai…
And with 2.0 banks like Monzo, the account holder gets notified of the Direct Debit setup, how much is likely to be debited, and can easily cancel it from the app. That reduces the risk of fraud quite a lot. In exchange, it saves a lot of time both for the customer and utility provider as the risks of mistakes are reduced considerably. Invoices get paid on time.
That said canceling a direct debit on your end even if it’s fraudulent isn’t something you should do as it can wreck your credit score in the UK since you’ll be in debt and depending on the account it can show up as a missed payment immediately even before it going to debt collector/judgement.
If there is a fraudulent transaction you have to contact the bank and file a claim.