AI Is Reshaping Fraud, and Banks Must Adapt

Artificial intelligence is changing how fraudsters target financial institutions and their customers, according to Tejal Kaur, writing for TechRadar Pro Perspectives. Kaur says criminal networks are using generative AI to make social engineering more convincing and easier to scale.

The techniques include synthetic identities designed to pass Know Your Customer checks and deepfake voices or videos used to trick people into approving transactions or sharing access credentials. Kaur describes these as attacks on the “trust layer”: the point where a person or system decides whether something is legitimate.

She argues that many current scams exploit customers rather than banks’ technical systems. As banks improve AI-based detection and customer manipulation becomes harder to use at scale, Kaur says direct attacks on institutions could become more attractive. She presents that shift as a possible next phase, not an established trend.

Kaur says security teams should look for signs that defenses are being tested, rather than focusing only on responding to individual incidents. She also argues that organizations can use external providers to bring AI tools into existing operations, including tools that combine statistical analysis, reasoning and explainability.

For AI-based defenses, she emphasizes testing systems for weaknesses before deployment and assessing transactions in real time. The article says such checks need to work in milliseconds while avoiding disruption to customers. TechRadar notes that the piece is part of its Pro Perspectives channel and that the views are the author’s.