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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

Stephen Terry

Stephen Terry UK MD at Arctera

Compliance with Confidence in the Financial Services Sector

Regulatory rules may shift but one thing remains constant: the need to manage risk to operations, customers, and market confidence. As regulations in the financial services sector evolve so too must the systems and strategies that firms use to manage them. With new requirements, standards, and laws coming to the fore, these regulatory moments offer...

/regulation /crime

Garima Chaudhary

Garima Chaudhary Global Head of Solution Eng, FinCrime & Compliance at Oracle

How Innovative Technologies Can Accelerate Readiness for EU AMLA Legislation

It is estimated that 1% of the European Union’s wealth—roughly €160 billion—is linked to suspicious activity (source). Despite various anti-money laundering (AML) directives over the years, the EU has lacked a centralized authority to consistently enforce and supervise AML efforts across Member States. While the European Central Bank’s Single Supe...

/regulation /crime Banking Regulations

James Baston-Pitt

James Baston-Pitt Head of Growth UK, EMEA and APAC at Alloy

Do fintechs stand a chance against shapeshifting, faceless fraudsters?

UK Finance’s latest fraud report is out and, like any good read, there are highs and lows: moments of positivity mixed with sobering reasons for pause. £1.17 billion was stolen by fraudsters in 2024. This is the same figure UK Finance’s financial institution members reported in 2023. While we’d like to see that number decline, the fact that total ...

/regulation /crime Exposing Financial Crime

Alex Rees

Alex Rees Information Technology

Breaking the Compliance Cost Spiral: How Automation Is Transforming Financial Crime Compliance

Financial institutions are pouring record sums into financial crime compliance—yet the system remains riddled with inefficiencies. According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions, global financial crime compliance costs have surged to $206 billion annually, driven by more complex regulations, heightened enforcement expectations, and legacy technology limit...

/regulation /crime RegTech

Roy Zur

Roy Zur CEO at Charm Security

Training AI Agents Like Behavioral Scientists to Excel at Preventing Scams and Fraud

As scams become more advanced and personalized, the tactics used to manipulate individuals are increasingly rooted in behavioral psychology. What once required blunt deception now relies on nuance: fraudsters exploit victims' fears, biases, and emotional vulnerabilities with surgical precision. With fraudsters now equipped with generative AI tool...

/security /crime Banking Strategy, Digital and Transformation

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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.

21 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 

333 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. 

378 downloads

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FinextraTV

Combating Cyber Threats: The role of AI, Partnerships and Education

Joining the FinextraTV studio, Michele Centemero, EVP, Regional Services Lead, Mastercard, outlined the stark position the world is in when it comes to the cybersecurity threat we face. As technology increases, it becomes both the problem and the solution, Centemero discusses what the landscape currently looks like and how education and partnership are key to heading in the right direction.

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Long reads

Dominique Dierks

Dominique Dierks Senior Content Manager at Finextra

What are deepfakes? Understanding modern scams

While AI and generative AI technology have made leaps in streamlining financial services over the last decade, fraudsters have made similar strides to use this technology for their advantage. Most nefariously, deepfakes becomes increasingly hard to differentiate from reality. So what is deepfake technology? And how is it affecting financial servic...

Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How AML and fraud teams are collaborating to lower risk and fight financial crime

Financial institution (FI) fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) teams are finally starting to work together! 80% of them, in fact. Plus, 53% of institutions' AML and financial crime departments share part or all of the systems they use, and 100% of the FIs surveyed use artificial intelligence (AI) as part of their arsenal across many different u...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Global fraud challenges and strategies to combat them

Nacha event Smarter Faster Payments in New Orleans set aside an hour to discuss the importance of collaboration among financial institutions and regulators, the role of data sharing in improving fraud detection, and the need for robust fraud controls. This global panel highlighted South Africa’s fraud journey, that has focused on prevention, detec...