Fraud has become the fastest growing threat to payment security. Visa He said in a new report.
Criminals have shifted their focus to scamming humans rather than exploiting technical system compromises as underlying payment security continues to strengthen, the company said on Wednesday (May 20). press release Highlight your findings Spring 2026 Semi-Annual Threat Report.
During the July-December 2025 period covered by the report, there was nearly $1 billion in fraud-related activity identified by Visa, according to the statement.
“Network-level payments are still more secure, but threats are evolving faster than ever.” Paul FabaraVisa’s chief risk and client services officer said in the statement. “Criminals are increasingly targeting people rather than technology, using deception, bullying and AI-powered tools to exploit trust.”
The AI-powered tools criminals are using in their scams include AI-generated content, voice impersonation and deepfake media, according to the report. These tools have enabled fraudsters to increase the reach and credibility of their scams.
The report said that the shift towards fraud requires organizations to adopt a fraud defense that combines identity verification, intent assessment, and tampering detection.
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Executives should consider building anti-phishing defense capabilities, treating customer communications as a security control, and aligning incentives and escalation paths across ecosystem partners to support faster takedown of fraud networks, according to the report.
Visa’s protections include continuous AI-driven transaction monitoring across the network to detect and block emerging threats; A dedicated fraud disruption team to identify, investigate and dismantle fraud networks; Network level disruption due to large-scale attacks; and collaborate with banks, merchants, technology partners and law enforcement agencies to disrupt criminal networks, according to the report.
Michael JabbaraThe rapid adoption of artificial intelligence by fraudsters has made intelligence-based defenses and coordinated action more important than ever, said Visa’s senior vice president of payment ecosystem risk and oversight, in the release.
“With this report, our goal is to help leaders act faster — before fraud reaches consumers,” Jabbara said.
Scams are among the most difficult fraud problems today because the victim authorizes the payment, believing it to be legitimate, Aman CheemaVisa’s Vice President of Global Professional Services and Networking said: PYMNTS INTELLIGENCE E-book”How Visa helps businesses stay ahead of payment fraud“.
Prevention requires modeling how customers typically interact, so organizations can detect activity that falls outside the norm; deploying human expertise to find signals worthy of attention; “And share intelligence across the ecosystem to respond more quickly and protect others from the same attack pattern,” Cheema said in the e-book.
