Payments fraud still pervasive

More than three-quarters of United States companies faced attempted or actual payments fraud in 2025, according to a new survey from the Association for Financial Professionals. (prnewswire.com) The Association for Financial Professionals said 76% of organizations reported fraud activity last year, and 74% said they were hit by business email compromise, a scam in which criminals use fake or hijacked messages to reroute payments. (prnewswire.com) Only 17% of surveyed organizations said they use artificial intelligence to fight payments fraud. Among the companies that do use it, 49% reported faster fraud reporting, 45% reported better deepfake detection, and 43% reported stronger real-time identification. (prnewswire.com) Checks remain a weak point. The survey found 58% of organizations said checks were exposed to fraud in 2025, and 72% of companies that still use checks said they plan to keep using them, with 68% citing vendor requirements. (prnewswire.com) That pattern has barely moved. In the 2025 edition of the same survey, 79% of organizations said they experienced attempted or actual payments fraud in 2024, 63% reported business email compromise, and 63% reported check fraud. (financialprofessionals.org) Federal Reserve Financial Services said checks were the payment method most subject to fraud in that 2025 survey, even though 91% of respondents still used them and more than 75% had no immediate plans to stop. (frbservices.org) Banks and payment operators are tightening rules around the problem. Nacha, which governs the Automated Clearing House network, said new 2026 requirements force large originating banks, businesses and service providers to use risk-based processes to identify fraudulent credit transfers, with a second phase for other receiving banks taking effect on June 19, 2026. (nacha.org) The dollar losses are large even when the complaint counts look smaller. Nacha, citing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center report, said business email compromise generated about 21,442 complaints in 2024 but nearly $2.8 billion in losses, and almost $8.5 billion over 2022 through 2024. (nacha.org) Axios reported on April 14 that faster artificial intelligence systems are raising the risk of both broad attacks on financial infrastructure and smaller targeted scams against bank customers, adding pressure on banks to update defenses more quickly. (axios.com) The survey’s bottom line is less about one new scam than a backlog of old ones. Companies are still sending risky payments through checks and email, while fraud controls, recovery tools and artificial intelligence adoption are moving more slowly. (prnewswire.com; financialprofessionals.org)