ACI Worldwide and The Paypers recently hosted an exclusive three-part virtual summit that gathered industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers to explore the rapidly evolving payments landscape. From the rise of agentic commerce to real-time cross-border infrastructure and collaborative fraud defence, this series dives into the technologies, strategies, and partnerships shaping the future of global payments.
In the third part of the summit, experts explored the rise in fraud and scams and why collaboration between sectors is a must. They discussed the importance of breaking down data silos to build real-time threat awareness across industries, shared best practices, and examined the regulatory levers and frameworks that enable effective collaboration.
The expert webinar brought together thought leaders including Cleber Martins (Head of Payments Intelligence & Risk Solution, ACI Worldwide), Tracy Kobeda Brown (Vice President, Programs and Technology, MRC), Mariana Santos (Policy Officer, Retail Payments, DG FISMA, European Commission), and Judith Arnal (Senior Researcher, Centre for European Policy Studies).
Cleber Martins from ACI Worldwide shared eye-opening data from ACI`s latest Scamscope fraud report, showing that Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud has already reached a staggering USD 4.4 billion worldwide and is expected to balloon to USD 7.6 billion by 2028. Even more concerning is that today, 63% of scams occur on real-time payment rails, a figure projected to increase to 80% by 2028.
Fraudsters exploit social engineering tactics, creating a false sense of urgency to trick customers into authorising payments that bypass traditional bank security measures. Artificial intelligence (AI) is making these scams more convincing and harder to detect, raising the stakes for banks, merchants, and consumers alike.
Fraud takes many forms – from purchase scams, investment fraud, and advance payment scams to impersonation fraud. Among these, romance scams are a rapidly growing category, preying on victims’ trust and emotions. This widespread fraud is eroding trust in financial institutions, driving some victims away from traditional banks altogether.
Judith Arnal added that in Europe, in absolute terms, credit transfers represent the largest source of fraud by value, followed by card payments. But in relative terms, credit transfers are still the safest payment method relatively. Fraud rates are higher in relative terms and are higher in e-money payments.
Cross-border transactions reveal even greater vulnerabilities: credit cards, which account for only 21% of cross-border transaction value, are responsible for 71% of fraud cases. Similarly, direct debits make up 5% of cross-border transactions but 47% of fraud incidents. These statistics point to a disproportionate risk in cross-border payments that demands heightened vigilance.
Merchants are increasingly concerned about fraud in real-time payments. Tracy Kobeda Brown explained that while refund and policy abuse fraud surged last year, return payments fraud is projected to become the second-largest fraud concern for merchants is 2025. The rise is driven by fraudsters’ evolving tactics, including leveraging kindness, business interactions, and disconnections between parties. This growth in fraud is expected to outpace anything seen in the past two decades.
Mariana Santos from the European Commission outlined the proposed Payment Services Regulation (PSR), designed to enhance collaboration and hold banks accountable for impersonation fraud. The PSR framework is built on four pillars:
With the European Parliament having adopted its position on PSR and PSD3 proposals in April 2024, Poland’s 2025 EU Council Presidency aims to finalise a general approach by mid-to-late June 2025.
Judith recommended amendments to PSR’s Article 59 to distribute liability proportionately across the entire payment value chain, rather than concentrating it solely on PSPs. She shared models from around the world that offer useful examples:
Such approaches encourage all actors in the payments ecosystem to take responsibility for fraud prevention.
Data privacy, regulatory compliance, and misaligned incentives remain significant barriers to collaboration between different sectors. Tracy reflected on how efforts to create a data-sharing consortium for fraud prevention faced obstacles two decades ago due to these challenges.
Cleber discussed ACI`s forward-thinking solution to fraud prevention: moving beyond mere data sharing to sharing actionable intelligence signals. Leveraging AI and federated machine learning, financial institutions can exchange insights in real time while preserving data privacy and complying with legal requirements.
This approach focuses on understanding fraud patterns through strong data correlations and sharing real insights that enable immediate fraud detection and prevention – allowing institutions to stay a step ahead of criminals.
When asked about the future safety of real-time payments, Tracy expressed confidence that strong authentication controls make real-time payments one of the safest, if not the safest, payment methods. Cleber added that enhancing real-time payments security is essential to delivering their promise of frictionless, consumer-friendly experiences. He envisions a future where robust security measures could even reduce the need for repeated authentication, opening opportunities for merchants to create innovative and seamless payment products.
The rapid growth of real-time payments comes with a growing and increasingly sophisticated fraud risk. Industry experts agree that a combination of stronger regulatory frameworks, cross-sector collaboration, and cutting-edge AI-enabled intelligence sharing will be critical to combat this threat.
Curious about the broader conversation?
Catch the first part of the summit, Agentic commerce - The final frontier of payments, here.
Watch the second part, The race to real-time: Transforming cross-border payments for a new era, here.
About Oana Ifrim
Oana Ifrim is Lead Editor and content strategist for The Paypers’ Banking and Fintech team. She writes and manages features on a broad range of topics, including fintech, banking, payments, and industry trends, driving the editorial vision for cutting-edge topics, including payments infrastructure, Open Banking, Open Finance, Embedded Finance, and Banking-as-a-Service. As an experienced editor and content lead, she oversees content creation and coverage, conducts expert interviews, and moderates video interviews, industry webinars, and panels. Oana also leads thought leadership initiatives, including whitepapers, customised projects, and in-depth industry reports. In addition to her editorial role, she represents The Paypers at major industry events, engaging with experts, gaining valuable insights, and staying ahead of key industry trends. She can be reached at oana@thepaypers.com or on LinkedIn.
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