Social Engineering: Solving the Most Difficult Fraud Challenge

Takes place on 03 Mar 2026 / 10:00 AM PDT / 01:00 PM EDT / 07:00 PM CET

Alexandra Rusu

20 Feb 2026 / 5 Min Read

A growing share of financial fraud relies on manipulation rather than technical know-how.

Instead of breaking into systems or stealing credentials, fraudsters are manipulating legitimate users to authenticate, approve payments, or hand over access themselves. To financial institutions, these events look normal (the right user, credentials, and device are used), even though what’s really happening is fraud.

Social engineering can feel like a purely human problem that’s hard to control, but it isn’t invisible. These attacks create early behavioural and contextual indicators, which can help identify manipulation as it unfolds, not just after the fact.

Agenda

How social engineering enables authorised push payment (APP) fraud, RAT-enabled scams, account takeover (ATO), and mule activity
Why social engineering isn’t invisible or unavoidable, and how the right tools surface it early
How fraud teams can identify social engineering earlier by looking at intent, context, and continuity, not just individual transactions

Presenters

Sune Gabelgård

Fraud Manager, Scheme European Payments Initiative - EPI

Alin Becheanu

Head of Fraud Monitoring & Prevention

André Ferraz

Co-Founder and CEO of Incognia

Keywords:

social engineering fraud payment customer manipulation

Countries:

World

The Paypers is a global hub for market insights, real-time news, expert interviews, and in-depth analyses and resources across payments, fintech, and the digital economy. We deliver reports, webinars, and commentary on key topics, including regulation, real-time payments, cross-border payments and ecommerce, digital identity, payment innovation and infrastructure, Open Banking, Embedded Finance, crypto, fraud and financial crime prevention, and more – all developed in collaboration with industry experts and leaders.