European banks face rising multi-channel and AI-driven fraud

A survey of 200 European fraud leaders, conducted ahead of 2026 planning, found banks reporting rising fraud across multiple customer and transaction channels, including AI-initiated payment flows and schemes that target virtual assets. Respondents said traditional threats such as card fraud and account takeover remain meaningful, but newer channels are becoming more prominent.

Respondents reported that fraud activity is accelerating across online, mobile and payment channels, creating pressure to extend detection and controls beyond legacy systems. Many banks are prioritizing artificial intelligence to broaden monitoring and response for both familiar and emerging fraud types.

Survey participants described widespread difficulty integrating AI tools with existing detection systems and operational processes. Those integration challenges are delaying deployments and limiting how fast institutions can adjust to new attacker techniques.

The survey highlighted uneven levels of expertise, funding and tooling across European markets. Some organizations reported well-resourced fraud teams with advanced analytics platforms. Others noted gaps in staff skills, budget and access to modern detection tools. Respondents said these disparities affect how quickly banks can upgrade controls and scale defenses for fraud types such as synthetic identity schemes combined with AI-generated payment instructions or scams exploiting virtual-asset on-ramps.

Participants said current investment priorities include improving detection across multiple channels, strengthening controls for new payment flows and virtual-asset transactions, and deploying systems that can correlate signals across channels to identify complex, multi-step attacks. Many respondents expressed limited confidence that existing capabilities will be sufficient over the next few years without faster technology implementation and increased collaboration between institutions.

A webinar presenting the survey findings is scheduled for industry fraud, risk and compliance leaders. The session will include Chris Ainsley, head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander, with Sharon Kimathi moderating, and will cover shifts in fraud tactics, effective controls and investment priorities for 2026.

Industry participants identified immediate tasks as expanding coverage to emerging channels, improving integration of AI tools with legacy systems, and addressing gaps in expertise and funding so controls can be deployed more uniformly across markets.