LSEG Risk Intelligence
As the new year unfolds, we unpack the key trends we anticipate in the global payments space.
- Real-Time Payments and Cross-Border Solutions: As businesses adopt faster payment systems and expand global transactions, they must address the increasing risk of fraud that comes with these innovations.
- Advanced Fraud Prevention: With fraudsters using more sophisticated techniques, companies will need to leverage AI, big data, and digital identities to build comprehensive, proactive fraud prevention strategies.
- Strengthening Supply Chain Security: As supply chains diversify, robust vendor management and real-time account verification will become crucial to prevent fraud in global operations.
- Holistic Fraud Prevention: As fraud continues to evolve, businesses must adopt a comprehensive, multi-layered approach that spans the entire customer and supplier lifecycle, integrating AI, big data, and continuous monitoring to effectively combat emerging threats.
An evolving landscape
Digital transformation and rapid developments in the real-time payments space continue to transform markets. These innovations allow providers to offer their customers increased speed and better efficiency, along with 24/7 availability – but at the same time, opportunities for fraud and financial crime are growing.
Digital transformation is a double-edged sword. As businesses increasingly leverage evolving tech, they optimise their offerings and acquire better tools to detect fraud. However, the increased use of digital channels also exposes them to a wider range of sophisticated threats – such as account takeovers, synthetic identity fraud, real-time fraud schemes, and more.
Bad actors are highly adept at leveraging industry innovation and the power of evolving tech to plan and execute sophisticated attacks – and the scale of illicit activity just keeps growing. For example, synthetic identity fraud is projected to generate at least US$23 billion in losses in the U.S. alone by 2030[1].
2025 will see synthetic identity fraud break out and become a substantial – and growing – challenge. The tools and technologies that fraudsters can leverage to create hyper-realistic synthetic identities are becoming cheaper and more readily available. At the same time, bad actors are becoming increasingly skilled.
Daniel Flowe
2025: the key trends
Real-time payments will gain momentum
Real-time payment systems will become increasingly popular as financial institutions ramp up their adoption of platforms that allow instantaneous fund transfers. This key development will deliver numerous benefits, boosting efficiency, meeting customer expectations for speed and keeping the pace of business swift.
Cross-border payment solutions will expand
As consumers and businesses increasingly expect – even demand – more seamless international transactions, the financial sector will implement advancements in cross-border payment systems. This will lead to faster, more secure ways of handling global payments – but at the same time, offer more opportunities for sophisticated fraudsters.
The adoption of digital IDs will expand
We expect an increased roll out and adoption of electronic and digital IDs in 2025 (and even more so after Europe's digital wallet mandate goes into effect in January 2026). These will bring enhanced inclusivity to the digital identity space – and will offer a highly capable backstop against fraud, synthetic identities and other types of impersonation.
Supply chain diversification will be essential
Organisations will need to take steps to minimise their exposure to geopolitical risk, and we expect to see companies increasingly diversifying their supply chains and opting for nearshoring strategies to plan for business continuity in volatile global markets. Alongside this diversification, robust vendor management will be crucial – especially in regions characterised by weaker fraud prevention infrastructure, a lack of vendor management organisations, or higher rates of risk relating to payment fraud, account takeovers and data breaches.
To effectively manage fraud, companies will need to ensure that they implement robust vendor management systems, secure payment methods, real-time account verification and continuous monitoring of transactions.
Jennifer Ballentine
Fraudsters will keep getting smarter
Sophisticated scamming techniques are on the rise and fraudsters are highly adept at employing innovative methods and leveraging the latest tech to gain unauthorised access to user accounts. This means that organisations need to stay one step ahead – and will increasingly be looking for trust, privacy and efficiency within their tools and technologies.
The orchestration of data will move front and centre
The need for deterministic and probabilistic data will continue to grow, but data is only as good as the insights that can be extracted. Orchestrated signals and data create a single customer universe, so different fraud and AML teams can work together more efficiently. Consortia data models will also grow, as organisations pool data to combat fraud.
We expect to see more consulting models coming into existence to fight identity and payments fraud, as both B2B and B2C businesses around the world seek to build efficiencies, leverage signals in data, create risk scores and ultimately stop fraud before it happens.
Aravind Narayan
Holistic fraud prevention: an intelligent response
Developing an intelligent response to rising fraud is vital – and this means taking a holistic approach to fraud prevention.
To effectively fight back, organisations must implement comprehensive systems that span customer and suppler lifecycles, adding fraud prevention and security measures at every stage – from onboarding through to the ongoing monitoring of all interactions.
Moreover, it will be essential for organisations to leverage the growing capabilities of AI and big data technology – and to use every tool available to them to stay a step ahead of sophisticated fraudsters.
The rise of AI adoption in the marketplace and the growing use of big data technology – from biometric and transactional data, to historic, real-time data and more – will be key enablers to confronting the growing problem of fraud in 2025.
Dal Sahota
Read more about
Legal Disclaimer
Republication or redistribution of LSE Group content is prohibited without our prior written consent.
The content of this publication is for informational purposes only and has no legal effect, does not form part of any contract, does not, and does not seek to constitute advice of any nature and no reliance should be placed upon statements contained herein. Whilst reasonable efforts have been taken to ensure that the contents of this publication are accurate and reliable, LSE Group does not guarantee that this document is free from errors or omissions; therefore, you may not rely upon the content of this document under any circumstances and you should seek your own independent legal, investment, tax and other advice. Neither We nor our affiliates shall be liable for any errors, inaccuracies or delays in the publication or any other content, or for any actions taken by you in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2024 London Stock Exchange Group. All rights reserved.
The content of this publication is provided by London Stock Exchange Group plc, its applicable group undertakings and/or its affiliates or licensors (the “LSE Group” or “We”) exclusively.
Neither We nor our affiliates guarantee the accuracy of or endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider, advertiser, sponsor or other user. We may link to, reference, or promote websites, applications and/or services from third parties. You agree that We are not responsible for, and do not control such non-LSE Group websites, applications or services.
The content of this publication is for informational purposes only. All information and data contained in this publication is obtained by LSE Group from sources believed by it to be accurate and reliable. Because of the possibility of human and mechanical error as well as other factors, however, such information and data are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. You understand and agree that this publication does not, and does not seek to, constitute advice of any nature. You may not rely upon the content of this document under any circumstances and should seek your own independent legal, tax or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Neither We nor our affiliates shall be liable for any errors, inaccuracies or delays in the publication or any other content, or for any actions taken by you in reliance thereon. You expressly agree that your use of the publication and its content is at your sole risk.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, LSE Group, expressly disclaims any representation or warranties, express or implied, including, without limitation, any representations or warranties of performance, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, reliability and non-infringement. LSE Group, its subsidiaries, its affiliates and their respective shareholders, directors, officers employees, agents, advertisers, content providers and licensors (collectively referred to as the “LSE Group Parties”) disclaim all responsibility for any loss, liability or damage of any kind resulting from or related to access, use or the unavailability of the publication (or any part of it); and none of the LSE Group Parties will be liable (jointly or severally) to you for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, incidental, punitive or exemplary damages, howsoever arising, even if any member of the LSE Group Parties are advised in advance of the possibility of such damages or could have foreseen any such damages arising or resulting from the use of, or inability to use, the information contained in the publication. For the avoidance of doubt, the LSE Group Parties shall have no liability for any losses, claims, demands, actions, proceedings, damages, costs or expenses arising out of, or in any way connected with, the information contained in this document.
LSE Group is the owner of various intellectual property rights ("IPR”), including but not limited to, numerous trademarks that are used to identify, advertise, and promote LSE Group products, services and activities. Nothing contained herein should be construed as granting any licence or right to use any of the trademarks or any other LSE Group IPR for any purpose whatsoever without the written permission or applicable licence terms.
