Industry must treat fraud as an ecosystem, experts say

A webinar hosted in association with Ecommpay will examine changes in fraud tactics and the regulatory and industry responses needed to address them. Interpol warns financial fraud is a rapidly evolving transnational crime and says AI-enhanced schemes are roughly 4.5 times more profitable than traditional methods.

The online panel will be moderated by contributing editor Teresa Connors and feature speakers including Willem Wellinghoff, Ecommpay UK chair and chief compliance officer. The discussion will focus on how attackers increasingly exploit human behaviour and social engineering to bypass consumer and institutional controls, and why individual companies and consumer awareness are no longer sufficient on their own.

Organisers note that responsibility for fraud prevention is spread across multiple regulatory and oversight bodies, and no single authority currently holds end-to-end oversight across banks, payment providers, fintechs and other service operators. At the same time, firms are building different fraud-detection systems, which limits data sharing and leaves gaps in collective defence.

Panelists will set out how those structural issues affect detection and response. Limited sharing of fraud indicators and attack patterns often means firms respond to similar threats independently, slowing detection and increasing costs. Smaller companies face resource limits that make it harder to buy advanced detection tools or meet multiple reporting requirements. Larger firms must weigh data sharing against legal duties and competition concerns.

Regulatory conflicts are also on the agenda. Rules and oversight duties can overlap or pull in different directions, complicating cooperation. Cross-border operations add further complexity because jurisdictions apply different rules for reporting, data handling and consumer protection. The panel will consider models for a more coordinated regulatory approach that recognises firms’ different risk profiles and resource constraints.

Speakers will examine proposals for standardisation, including common processes, shared taxonomies for fraud types and interoperable data formats. Proponents argue these measures could help pool intelligence, automate the flagging of suspicious transactions and reduce duplicated effort. The discussion will also cover drawbacks: common frameworks may impose costs on smaller firms, be slow to adapt to new attack methods and create systemic risk if shared systems are compromised. Legal barriers such as data-protection rules and competition law will be reviewed as limits on shared platforms.

The panel will discuss practical collaboration models, including industry-run non-profit platforms to share anonymised fraud indicators under legal safeguards. The conversation will include possible regulatory steps such as clearer allocation of oversight responsibilities, safe-harbour provisions for vetted information sharing and guidance that scales expectations to firm size and market role.

The session will bring together compliance officers, regulators and industry executives to identify operational and legal changes that could support more coordinated detection and response across the payments and financial ecosystem.