Global Banks Build Behavioral Defences Against AI Scams

A webinar drawing on consumer survey data from Outseer reviewed the scam controls leading banks are adopting as AI-enabled and scam-as-a-service attacks rise. The session included Outseer principal product manager Martyn Higson and was moderated by researcher Sharon Kimathi. The survey covered more than 15 markets and mapped controls customers want against measures financial institutions report as effective.

Outseer data showed consumers are increasingly anxious about automated and socially engineered scams. Survey respondents expect banks to go beyond detection tools and provide clear warnings, timely intervention and rapid support when a customer is targeted or suffers financial harm.

The webinar organized controls across five stages of a scam: pre-attack, consumer compromise, transaction, receipt and post-attack. Pre-attack measures described include proactive screening, risk-based customer alerts and education based on intelligence about likely points of exposure. At the consumer compromise stage, banks are placing greater emphasis on real-time account monitoring, device and session risk scoring, and early detection of account takeover indicators such as SIM swap activity.

During the transaction stage, speakers highlighted real-time decisioning and blocking, stepped-up verification for high-risk payments and temporary holds to allow additional checks. At the receipt stage, institutions are increasing monitoring of beneficiary flows and sharing information more quickly with other banks and law enforcement to trace funds. In the post-attack phase, respondents prioritized clear remediation processes, faster investigations and reimbursement policies to restore customer confidence.

Outseer findings indicated that behavioral interventions can reduce successful scams when layered on technical controls. Examples cited include interruptive messages when a transaction looks risky, context-aware prompts that ask customers to confirm unusual activity and calibrated friction such as extra verification for high-risk actions.

Panelists pointed out operational pressures facing fraud teams as scam-as-a-service and AI-enabled social engineering raise both volume and sophistication of attacks. The webinar recommended expanding cross-sector intelligence sharing and investing in automated, scalable controls to handle higher transaction volumes and faster decisioning requirements.

Martyn Higson and the panel highlighted the combination of transaction monitoring, intelligence sharing, consumer messaging and clear remediation as the set of controls banks are increasingly deploying across the scam attack chain. The webinar presented survey data and practitioner experience without assigning a single cure; it identified a range of controls banks are testing and implementing across markets.