The U.K. payments community gathered recently at the Financial Crime 360 conference in London, where discussions focused on how quickly fraud tactics are progressing and how the industry must adapt just as fast. While AI plays a growing role in both fraud and fraud prevention, the strongest message was about collaboration and layered defences. 

Staged by the U.K.-based Payments Association, one of the strongest warnings heard at the event is that fraudsters are moving up the value chain, searching for the most lucrative opportunities in a quality over quantity shift.

This emerging trend, highlighted by multiple speakers, is a move towards higher-value scams, particularly investment fraud. Recent UK Finance data show that investment scams grew by more than 50% year-on-year, making them one of the biggest drivers of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud losses. Erez Nounou, Head of Product for Risk Solutions at Bottomline, who attended the event, shared how fraudsters are now prioritising fewer, higher-reward attacks over the traditional volume-driven, low-value scams.

Solutions like the U.K.’s Confirmation of Payee and the EU’s Verification of Payee continue to play an important part in preventing misdirected payments, but they are not standalone solutions. Fraud losses continue to rise overall, underscoring the importance of viewing CoP and VOP as part of a layered control environment rather than the sole defence.

This progression means that relying on legacy fraud controls is ill-advised. Nounou explained that even sophisticated firms get caught out, saying, “The biggest losses are from transactions where controls were bypassed, or where the human factor comes into play.”

What’s the upshot? Firms that treat payment fraud as a one-and-done problem will soon find themselves outpaced, outwitted, and out of pocket.

 

Regulation Forces an Upstream Mindset

Regulation also played a major role in event conversations. The new Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud reimbursement model, mandated by the U.K.’s Payment Services Regulator (PSR), provides clearer victim protection and increases reimbursement of losses. However, reimbursement does not stop fraud at its source. Industry speakers stressed the need for upstream intervention, addressing the role of digital advertising, telecom networks, and online identity verification in enabling scams. 

One of the most talked-about conference themes was the potential of early fraud detection within digital platforms. “Blacklists on messaging apps and social platforms, and pattern recognition at the telco level, could help prevent scams from ever reaching the payment initiation stage,” Nounou said.  

Yet for payment organisations, the regulatory focus is unambiguous: “The goal isn’t just victim reimbursement. It’s aligning incentives so both sending and receiving banks invest in the controls that stop scams in the first place,” he said.

As these regulations take root and the risk shifts upstream, business payments teams must recognise the opportunity. “This creates a new competitive advantage for firms willing to invest in smarter, more proactive defences,” he said, “not just patching holes, but thinking like fraudsters to anticipate their next move.”

 

Layered Defences: The Power (and Price) of Data Sharing

A key theme at the conference was the potential of cross-sector data sharing. Banks, telecoms, fintechs, and digital platforms are exploring new partnerships to share intelligence that can stop fraud earlier in the customer journey.

The industry sees this as a multi-year progression: 2024 focused on reimbursement, 2025 on prevention, and 2026 on scaling what works. Trust, governance, and clarity on what to share remain the main barriers.

The consensus among Financial Crime 360 speakers was that no single fraud solution is effective anymore. “Standalone anti-fraud tools are obsolete,” Nounou said. “Today’s landscape demands robust, layered defence across the entire transaction lifecycle.”

That means combining fraud screening, anti-money laundering (AML) controls, behavioural analytics, and real-time transaction monitoring, all tailored to an organisation’s unique risk profile. And Nounou emphasised that one-size-fits-all does not work in today’s market.

“Major banks are demanding configurable solutions because each faces its own risk pressures and compliance responsibilities,” he said. New platform models seek to balance standardised data-sharing with personalisation. He also noted that “Platforms are bringing together fraud and AML teams, sharing data for transparency, but still keeping processes specialised enough to meet individual requirements.”

Of particular interest at the event were pilots bringing together banks, fintechs, and telcos. Nounou described these as game changers: “What’s unique about new cross-sector partnerships is their ability to track the fraudster’s footprint all the way from blocked SIM cards at the telco, to flagged payments at the bank, to patterns seen on fintech platforms.” 

But the biggest challenge, he warned, is trust. “Banks have collaborated over fraud data for years, but now that telcos and platforms are joining, there are major concerns about who gets to see what, and on what terms. That trust gap must close.”

 

AI’s Promise vs. the Need for “AI Explainability”

Artificial intelligence featured in nearly every panel discussion, but the emphasis was not only on efficiency gains. There was an acknowledgement that any AI deployed in fraud prevention must be “explainable.” Financial institutions need to understand what data powers a model, how decisions are made, and how outcomes map to regulatory expectations and audit processes. Efficiency is important, but transparency and responsibility are essential.

“Everyone assumes AI will boost efficiency, cut costs, and reduce both false positives and false negatives in fraud detection,” Nounou said, underscoring optimism around the technology.

Yet the real challenge for business payments leaders is not just deploying AI, but ensuring its transparency and trustworthiness. “People are worried about ‘black box’ AI. Nobody wants decisions they can’t explain to customers, regulators, or auditors,” he said.

“Organisations must know what data feeds the AI and how decisions are reached. That level of explainability is non-negotiable in financial services.”

Additionally, Nounou urged companies to future-proof their anti-fraud operations.

“AI is moving fast, from static rules to unsupervised learning that flags completely new patterns,” he said. “Your defences must evolve with it. Success means both deploying smart technology and being able to explain every decision.”

As fraud continues to mutate, organisations are actively shifting from reactive controls to proactive prevention. That means layered defences, stronger collaboration across industries, and responsible, explainable use of AI. The goal is not only to respond to fraud more effectively, but to prevent harm before it occurs.

“Stopping fraud at the source is the new buzz,” Nounou said. For companies in the U.K. payments ecosystem and those doing business in the U.K., the stakes have never been higher, and the rewards never greater, for those who can move more quickly than criminals.