Fraud trends, digital identity wallets & the future of IDV – insights from Alloy’s Laura Spiekerman at Money20/20

Digital identity is no longer a fixed snapshot; it's a dynamic and evolving concept shaped by government IDs, credit scores, behavioural patterns, and transaction data. 

In this exclusive Money20/20 interview, Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder and President of Alloy, sits down with The Paypers to explore the latest trends in identity verification, fraud prevention, and digital identity wallets. The discussion also touches on how financial institutions in the US and Europe are approaching identity and compliance challenges, and what it takes to future-proof identity infrastructure in an age of rising fraud. 

Laura, you are the co-founder and president of Alloy, but I have this feeling that you didn't work here forever. When you were a child, what did you want to be?

I never imagined I’d run a fraud‑and‑compliance company; as a kid, I wanted to be a ballerina. My career pivot began in college when I became fascinated by basic ‘dumb’ phones spreading through emerging markets. While studying in West Africa, I saw microfinance in action - small, cash‑based loans that were life‑changing but slow. A few years later in Nairobi, M‑Pesa had exploded: three‑quarters of Kenyan adults now banked on their phones. I realised that better financial infrastructure - delivered through mobile - could transform entire economies.

Yet I kept running into the same obstacle: identity. In the US, I take a Social Security number for granted, but many people have no formal ID, which blocks access to banking. That insight followed me back home. In 2014, I joined a startup (where I met my future Alloy co‑founders) trying to enable instant payments, but the US ACH rails still settle in days. Again, identity checks were the bottleneck. We concluded that to make finance truly accessible - whether in Nairobi or New York - we first had to solve digital identity and onboarding. That challenge became Alloy.

Each year, Alloy publishes its State of Fraud Benchmark Report. From the latest edition, what key trends did you observe regarding the types of fraud and attack vectors targeting financial institutions? 

One major shift we observed is that about three-quarters of fintechs in the US and UK are now facing significant threats from organised crime rings. That’s a big change from just a few years ago, when first-party fraud was the main concern - and before that, it was synthetic identities. The threat landscape keeps evolving.

What’s especially notable now is how tools like AI are making it easier for organised groups to scale their attacks. The upside is that these attacks often leave detectable patterns - like shared zip codes, IP addresses, or VPNs- which give institutions a fighting chance. That’s very different from first-party fraud, which tends to be more nuanced and harder to spot.

How prepared are these institutions to detect, stop, and prevent fraud - and what methods are proving most effective?

They’re better prepared than they were. Our report found that fintechs increasingly see identity risk solutions as their first line of defence. Encouragingly, 96% say their investments in fraud tools have already paid off.

That said, fraud prevention isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ exercise. Because fraud tactics evolve so quickly, successful institutions are those that treat it as a living system - constantly updating rules, models, and approaches to stay ahead.

Based on your conversations with industry stakeholders, do you feel that banks and fintechs fully grasp the importance of robust digital identity and identity verification solutions?

Yes, there’s a real shift in awareness. Compared to a few years ago, banks and fintechs now recognise that investing in digital identity is essential. What’s still evolving, though, is how and where identity fits within their organisations.

Many teams, like fraud, compliance, and business units, have historically operated in silos. In some banks, the BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) team may barely interact with the fraud team. But that’s starting to change. We’re seeing more centralisation and collaboration, as institutions realise that while these teams have different goals, they rely on the same identity data to make decisions.

There is this move to create digital identity wallets, especially in Europe, in the UK, also in the US - you have the mobile driving license. How are these solutions helping? And how is Alloy working with them?

At first glance, these wallets might seem competitive with what we do. But they’re complementary - if built with interoperability in mind. That’s where Europe is ahead. They’ve prioritised making digital ID systems work across borders, which is essential for businesses operating in multiple markets.

The US is further behind. We have isolated efforts, like mobile driver’s licenses and organisations like the Open Wallet Foundation, but there's no unified, nationwide solution - and coverage is inconsistent.

Another major challenge in the US is business identity. Know Your Business (KYB) data is fragmented, often stored on paper, and managed state by state through different Secretaries of State. Companies like Middesk are working to centralise that data, but it's difficult to keep updated - especially for new businesses.

In both the US and Europe, one of the biggest gaps is real-time updates. Business ownership can change rapidly, and without proactive systems to flag new beneficial owners, the risk profile of a company can shift without notice.

Even in places like the UK, where tools like Companies House exist, registry data can be outdated or inaccurate. Without real-time validation or cross-border alignment, identity wallets - whether for individuals or businesses - still have a long way to go.

How can private-sector identity strategies be aligned with public-sector initiatives - such as the development of national or European digital identity wallets? What are the opportunities for collaboration, and what challenges might stand in the way?

At Money20/20, I joined a panel called It’s Time to Redefine What Makes Up a Digital Identity, and my favorite question was about investment: should identity infrastructure be public or private? My answer was both. We need collaboration.

Private solutions — from identity verification tools to behavioural risk scoring — are important. But we also need strong public infrastructure to issue foundational IDs, like a driver’s license, and provide secure digital access to them. One without the other doesn’t scale.

We’ve seen the impact of public-led systems like Aadhaar in India or M-Pesa in Kenya (while not an identity platform per se), they enabled access and trust at scale. Aadhaar, however, hasn’t evolved much in the last decade. With Europe’s eIDAS 2.0, this feels like the first time since Aadhaar where real momentum is building again.

What’s exciting is the possibility of building with interoperability across geographies in mind. That’s something we don’t typically consider in the US, where identity systems are fragmented but consumers often have the same experience. In Europe, onboarding processes - even for the same type of service - vary widely from country to country. That fragmentation is a challenge, but also a forcing function. If you can make an identity wallet work across 10 countries, you're building something that’s future-proof. It pushes the whole ecosystem - public and private - to collaborate more deeply and serve people where they are, not just where they were born. 

People are more mobile than ever. They want to send money globally and access their financial lives seamlessly. For those earning in cash or without traditional IDs, this kind of inclusive infrastructure is critical. The complexity may be invisible to many users - but it’s massive behind the scenes.

About author

Laura Spiekerman is the co-founder and President of Alloy, a leading identity and fraud prevention platform provider. Over the last ten years, Laura has received numerous accolades for her impact on the fintech industry, including being named one of FinTech Magazine's Top 100 Women (2025), one of American Banker's Most Influential Women in Fintech (2023), and a Crain's New York Notable Woman on Wall Street (2021). Prior to founding Alloy in 2015, Laura held several different strategic roles at both startups and investment firms in the payments and technology space. 

 

About Alloy

Alloy helps solve the identity risk problem for companies that offer financial products by enabling them to outpace fraud and confidently serve more people around the world. Over 700 of the world’s largest financial institutions and fintechs turn to Alloy to take control of fraud, credit, and compliance risk, and grow with the clearest picture of their customers.