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News and resources on financial crime, including fraud, scams, Anti Money Laundering and Know Your Customer.

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Expert opinions

Joris Lochy

Joris Lochy Product Manager at Intix | Co-founder at Capilever

The First Line of Defense: Tackling Scams Before Transactions

In my blog "The Missing Link in Fraud Prevention: Real-Time Customer Dialogue" (https://bankloch.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-missing-link-in-fraud-prevention.html) I argued for moving fraud checks earlier in the payment flow. Rather than waiting until a customer has signed and submitted a payment, banks should interact during the initiatio

/retail /crime Exposing Financial Crime

Barley Laing

Barley Laing UK Managing Director at Melissa

How to prevent synthetic identity fraud before it strikes

Increasingly sophisticated fraud is on the rise. One of the fastest growing is synthetic identity fraud (SIF), which sees criminals creating new, false identities using a combination of real, stolen and fake data - such as birthdates and addresses - which they then use to defraud those in financial services. AI-powered tools are accelerating this ...

/identity /crime Digital Identity Management

Grant MacDonald

Grant MacDonald Director of Financial Crime at Experian

Why Financial Crime Strategy Is Becoming a Business Imperative

Fraud and financial crime haven’t gone away, they’ve evolved. And for UK businesses, that evolution is prompting a strategic rethink. The threats are more sophisticated, the pressure to respond is mounting, and the cost of inaction is rising. According to the latest Experian UK Fraud and FinCrime Report, just one in ten businesses expect to reduce...

/identity /crime Exposing Financial Crime

Ben O'Brien

Ben O'Brien Managing Director at Jaywing

Federated learning in fraud detection: From proof of concept to practical adoption

At this year’s Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference in Edinburgh, colleagues Ben Archer and Peter Szocs presented on a topic gaining significant attention: how federated learning can support banks in addressing fraud. Fraud has risen sharply in recent years, both in scale and sophistication. Cifas reported more than 217,000 cases to the Nat...

/crime

Jonathan Frost

Jonathan Frost Global Advisory, EMEA at BioCatch

The agentic bank: Where innovation meets risk

Tomorrow’s banks are transforming the way they operate. Griffin, a UK-based banking-as-a-service fintech, recently announced plans to integrate autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents into its core banking infrastructure, while traditional bank ING has already confirmed the incorporation of agentic AI into its operations. The prospect of m...

/ai /crime Banking

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Trending

Joris Lochy

Joris Lochy Product Manager at Intix | Co-founder at Capilever

The First Line of Defense: Tackling Scams Before Transactions

Barley Laing

Barley Laing UK Managing Director at Melissa

How to prevent synthetic identity fraud before it strikes

/crime

Research

Future of Report

The future of payments in major global markets: A mid-decade review

2025 is a significant year for the global payments industry. Marking the midpoint of the decade, and witnessing pivotal trends like the rise of real-time payments, advanced fraud detection and prevention, data portability, and open finance—these interlinked developments will set the stage for innovation through to 2030 and beyond.  The payments industry is now at the tipping point of global innovation, especially with global e-commerce market revenue projected to reach over $4.3 billion in 2025 and grow by 8% (CAGR 2025-2029). Further, by 2026, 5.2 billion people, or more than 60% of the global population, are expected to use digital wallets. The value of global transactions through account-to-account (A2A) payments is also predicted to rise from $1.7 trillion in 2024 to $5.7 trillion by 2029 – an increase of 230%. This will also pave the way for real-time payments to boom, with an expected CAGR of over 35% from 2024 to 2032. Looking at major global markets, the UK has continued to be at the forefront of the global payments revolution, quickly emerging as a hub for open banking as a result of the PSD2 directive and the UK’s pioneering standard. In October 2024, the Data Use and Access Bill was introduced to the House of Lords, signalling the UK’s commitment to bolstering open banking’s data sharing principles. Similarly, a month later, the National Payments Vision was unveiled, charting a clear path for the entire ecosystem to leverage technologies such as AI and DLT. The payments revolution is also taking over Europe. The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) is rolling out instant payments by amending SEPA and adding specific provisions on instant credit transfers in euro to existing cross-border regulation: the Settlement Finality Directive (SFD) and the Payment Services Directive (PSD2). IPR also demands for Verification of Payee (VoP), confirming a recipient's account details before a payment is made and bringing down increasing numbers of fraud, particularly in the instant payments space. Similar to other regions, the US has made significant steps toward the innovation and interoperability of real-time payments – most recently through the launch of FedNow in 2023, the Federal Reserve’s real-time payment rail. Predictions show a total value of $95 billion in-app social commerce payments by 2030 in the US alone, meaning the integration of open banking is pivotal to maximising the value to be gained from e-commerce. However, the impact of the Trump administration’s strains on the CFPB and how that will effect Section 1033 and open banking in the US will be seen. This Finextra report, in association with Form3, examines the impact of these crucial advancements on the future of global payment schemes in the UK, Europe and the US, highlighting insights from experts at Bank of America, Crédit Agricole, ING, J.P. Morgan Payments, Lloyds, Santander, and Truist.

579 downloads

Survey

Navigating the Nordic financial landscape: 2025 challenges and priorities

As the Nordic financial sector faces new hurdles and opportunities, a variety of issues are front and centre for financial institutions, technology providers, and fintechs.  Our latest survey of 150 responses reveals how Nordic institutions across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are navigating the current landscape and their strategic priorities for 2025. Providing valuable insights into areas such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), Verification of Payee (VoP), AI’s growing role in financial services, perspectives on central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stablecoin, and evolving payment trends such as Account-to-Account (A2A) and instant payments.  Analysis of our survey responses provides a comprehensive overview on how Nordic institutions are navigating transformation shaped by innovation, regulation, and evolving customer expectations, with progress and priorities varying by country.  We explore regional specific views towards:  Key priorities for 2025  Readiness for Verification of Payee (VoP)  Strategic AI integration for real impact  The rise of A2A, instant, and mobile payments  Attitudes towards central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoin  The impact of DORA 

345 downloads

Future of Report

The Future of US Digital Payments 2025: ACH & Beyond

A special edition for Nacha's Smarter Faster Payments 2025.    The US digital payments landscape stands at a transformative crossroads. With the launch of RTP in 2016 and FedNow in 2023, the foundational infrastructure for instant payments is finally in place - poised to revolutionise the speed, efficiency, and security of transactions across the economy.    Yet despite these advancements, the path to widespread adoption remains complex and cautious. Entrenched systems like ACH and Wire, with their deep integration and long-standing reliability, continue to dominate due to their established utility and the significant investment required to pivot toward newer rails.    It’s not just a question of technological readiness, but of mindset, cost, and strategy. The advantages of instant payments—real-time access to funds, reduced credit risk, and improved liquidity—are clear. However, to truly unlock these benefits, banks and institutions must overcome the inertia of legacy systems and embrace modernisation, often with the support of flexible, cloud-native solutions that can de-risk and streamline the transition.    This Finextra report, in association with Form 3, explores industry sentiment on the future of US digital payments and showcases the views of BNY, Citizens, Green Dot, J.P. Morgan, U.S. Bank, and the US Faster Payments Council. It explores:    Evolving ACH infrastructure;  Enhancing RPT and FedNow capabilities;  How new rails interact with existing rails;  Redefining transactional architecture through emerging technologies;  Recognising risk as a strategic advantage in fraud prevention;  Prioritising innovation and compliance at the same time. 

393 downloads

/crime

FinextraTV

How A2A Innovation is Advancing The Fight Against Fraud

Speaking to FinextraTV in this interview, Helena Forest, EVP, Global Product & Commercial, Real Time Payments, Mastercard and Luke Reynolds, SVP, Financial Crimes, Mastercard discuss the impact of fraud and payment scams and look to address their prevention. As well as covering the many forms of fraud, such as APP fraud and romance scams, Forest and Reynolds explore the innovations currently available to help reduce its impact. They provide an honest optimism whilst remaining aware of the existing complexities within fraud prevention, bringing attention to the impact of the latest account to account fraud prevention methods including risk-scoring and Mastercard's UK A2A Sandbox.

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Long reads

Hamish Monk

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What are social engineering scams?

Social engineering is the next cybersecurity battleground. In August 2025 alone, social engineering and multi-chain attacks drove a 15% crypto hack spike – with $163 million lost across 16 major breaches, targeting exchanges, DeFi protocols, and individual users. According to the on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, one investor lost 783 Bitcoin, worth $91 mi...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

World Day Against Trafficking in Persons: Can AI and quantum computing turn the tide?

Marked on 30 July, International Human Trafficking Day, otherwise known as World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, was established in response to a request for the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to host a meeting to counter the buying and selling of fellow humans in 2006. Fast forward to 2015, the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What Australia’s Confirmation of Payee means for the future of fraud prevention

July 2025 saw Australian banks unveil their version of scam fighting technology Confirmation of Payee, allowing names to be matched to accounts and preventing customers from being tricked into sending funds to fraudsters. Forming part of the Scam-Safe Accord – a joint initiative of the Australian Banking Association (ABA) and the Customer Owned Ba...