Vanessa Hurdowar, Sales Director, LSEG Risk Intelligence
with Vanessa Hurdowar, LSEG Risk Intelligence
Vanessa Hurdowar opened the discussion by examining how fraud has evolved over the past 12 to 18 months. While fraud has always been a challenge for financial institutions, she explained that the combination of AI driven scale, speed and sophistication has fundamentally changed the threat landscape.
What once took fraudsters days or weeks can now be achieved in minutes. AI is enabling highly personalised attacks that are increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish from legitimate interactions. As a result, fraud is no longer simply a financial loss issue. Organisations are now facing growing operational pressures, regulatory challenges and, most importantly, a loss of customer trust.
Vanessa highlighted the importance of resilience, arguing that fraud prevention must extend beyond the fraud team and become an organisation wide priority. She discussed how leading businesses are adopting continuous monitoring, real time risk based decision making and customer engagement strategies that maintain confidence during moments of heightened risk.
The conversation also explored the delicate balance between fraud prevention and customer experience. Vanessa explained how organisations are increasingly using risk based approaches that apply friction only when necessary, allowing low risk customers to enjoy seamless experiences while ensuring higher risk activity receives appropriate scrutiny.
She concluded by discussing the role of AI in fraud prevention. While AI helps organisations identify behavioural patterns and risk signals at scale, human judgement remains essential in high risk situations where context, intent and trust play a critical role.
Will Marwick, Chief Executive Officer, IFX Payments
with Will Marwick, IFX Payments
Will Marwick reflected on IFX Payments’ evolution from a foreign exchange brokerage into a payments and alternative banking fintech. While foreign exchange remains an important part of the business, he explained that the company’s focus has increasingly shifted towards payments infrastructure, treasury management and embedded financial services.
The discussion centred on the growing importance of payment efficiency. While speed has become an expectation in modern payments, Will argued that businesses are increasingly concerned with certainty, reliability and cost effectiveness. A payment that arrives instantly is of little value if poor data quality or compliance issues cause delays further down the process.
Currency volatility was another key theme. Will explained that businesses operating internationally must consider not only transaction speed but also the financial impact of exchange rate fluctuations, correspondent banking fees and settlement costs. Effective treasury management and hedging strategies can help organisations better manage these risks.
The conversation also explored the ongoing challenges within cross border payments. Regulatory differences, fragmented payment systems, liquidity requirements and compliance obligations continue to create friction despite advances in technology. While innovations such as stablecoins may offer opportunities, Will stressed that speed must not come at the expense of security, fraud controls and customer protection.
Looking ahead, he suggested that regulation should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a barrier. Organisations that invest in strong compliance frameworks and secure payment infrastructure are likely to gain a competitive advantage as trust becomes an increasingly important factor for customers.
Yair Tal, Chief Executive Officer, and Carol Grunberg, Chief Partnerships Officer, Au10tix
with Yair Tal and Carol Grunberg, Au10Tix
Yair Tal and Carol Grunberg provided insights into the rapidly evolving fraud landscape and the growing challenges facing organisations responsible for identity verification and onboarding.
Yair explained that fraud prevention requires organisations to think like fraudsters. Different types of fraud involve different motivations, techniques and levels of sophistication, ranging from large scale account creation schemes to highly targeted attacks designed to secure loans or steal sensitive information. Understanding these behaviours allows organisations to build more proactive defences while maintaining an appropriate balance between security and customer experience.
The discussion highlighted how fraud simulation exercises help organisations identify vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them. By continuously analysing new fraud techniques and behavioural patterns, companies can stay ahead of emerging threats.
Carol focused on the industrialisation of fraud. Fraud is no longer isolated to individual attacks but has become a highly organised global activity operating at enormous scale. She shared examples of major brands experiencing millions of attack attempts in a single day, often from multiple coordinated fraud networks operating simultaneously.
The conversation also explored the growing threat posed by synthetic identities, deepfakes and AI generated fraud. As fraudsters gain access to increasingly sophisticated tools, identity verification becomes more complex and organisations must look beyond individual transactions to assess behaviour across wider ecosystems.
Looking ahead, both guests identified agentic AI as a significant emerging challenge. As AI agents increasingly act on behalf of users, organisations will need new ways to verify identities, establish accountability and manage risk in an increasingly automated environment.
Keith Grose, UK CEO, Coinbase
with Keith Grose, Coinbase
Keith Grose discussed the identity and fraud challenges facing one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency platforms and how Coinbase is responding to increasingly sophisticated threats.
With millions of customers and thousands of new users joining the platform each day, identity verification remains a critical priority. Keith explained that advances in AI have made it easier than ever for fraudsters to create convincing fake documents and identities, requiring organisations to adopt stronger biometric verification and machine learning driven detection methods.
Coinbase combines multiple identity verification providers with its own AI and machine learning models to identify suspicious behaviour and detect emerging fraud patterns. Keith emphasised that fraud prevention is a continuous process that relies on constant adaptation, collaboration with partners and close cooperation with law enforcement agencies.
The conversation also explored the future of trusted identity. Keith suggested that identity verification will increasingly move towards biometric authentication and privacy preserving technologies such as zero knowledge proofs, allowing users to verify specific information without exposing unnecessary personal data.
AI now plays a role throughout Coinbase’s operations, supporting customer service, fraud detection, compliance investigations and collaboration with regulators and law enforcement. While Keith acknowledged that fraud remains an ongoing battle, he believes advances in AI are providing organisations with increasingly effective tools to identify and disrupt criminal activity.
Robert Bueninck, CEO, Unzer
with Robert Bueninck, Unzer
Robert Bueninck shared his perspective on the future of payments infrastructure in Europe, the rise of agentic commerce and the ongoing challenge of balancing growth with fraud prevention.
He described Europe’s payments landscape as highly fragmented, with national payment schemes continuing to dominate individual markets while truly pan European solutions remain limited. Robert suggested that greater collaboration between payment providers, rather than relying solely on traditional banking institutions, will be necessary to drive further innovation.
Agentic commerce was another major focus of the discussion. While fully autonomous transactions between AI agents remain some way from widespread adoption, Robert believes earlier forms of agentic commerce are much closer than many people realise. Retailers are already beginning to explore AI powered shopping assistants that can guide customers through purchasing journeys and support payment experiences.
The conversation also examined fraud prevention and merchant onboarding. Robert noted that AI and machine learning have been used in fraud detection for many years, but fraudsters continue to evolve their methods at an equally rapid pace. Effective fraud prevention therefore requires continuous adaptation and a careful balance between reducing fraud and minimising false positives.
Ultimately, Robert argued that the objective is not to eliminate fraud entirely, but to achieve an acceptable balance between risk management and commercial growth. Excessive controls can damage customer experiences and reduce sales, while insufficient controls expose businesses to unacceptable levels of risk.
Alex Kopferschmitt, Strategic Partnerships Manager, TRM Labs
with Alex Kopferschmitt, TRM Labs
Alex Kopferschmitt explored how financial crime is evolving as increasing volumes of activity move onto blockchain networks and digital asset ecosystems.
He explained that traditional distinctions between conventional financial crime and crypto related crime are rapidly disappearing. Criminal organisations involved in scams such as authorised push payment fraud, romance scams and other forms of financial crime are increasingly using blockchain networks and stablecoins to move funds across borders.
This shift is creating new challenges for financial institutions. Fraud teams that only monitor traditional payment systems risk missing significant activity occurring on blockchain networks. As a result, organisations need visibility across both traditional and digital financial systems.
The conversation also examined how concepts of identity and trust differ in blockchain environments. While traditional financial institutions establish trust primarily through onboarding and verification, blockchain ecosystems require continuous behavioural monitoring. Wallets that appear legitimate today may become exposed to illicit activity tomorrow, making ongoing assessment essential.
Alex also discussed the role of AI in investigations. New AI driven tools are helping analysts automate complex investigative processes, reducing the time required to trace funds, identify networks and build intelligence reports. However, he stressed that human judgement remains essential when interpreting findings and making decisions.
Looking ahead, Alex believes the future of financial crime prevention lies in bringing together identity, account information, blockchain intelligence and real time monitoring into a single operational view. Combined with greater intelligence sharing between public and private sector organisations, this integrated approach will be critical in tackling increasingly sophisticated financial crime networks.
Key Themes Across the Discussions
Several common themes emerged throughout the episode. Fraud continues to evolve rapidly, driven by advances in AI that are increasing both the scale and sophistication of attacks. Across payments, identity verification and financial crime prevention, organisations are increasingly focussed on balancing security with customer experience.
Trust was another recurring topic. Whether discussing fraud prevention, payments, digital identity or blockchain networks, speakers consistently highlighted the importance of maintaining customer confidence while adopting new technologies.
AI featured prominently throughout every conversation. While fraudsters are using AI to enhance their attacks, organisations are also leveraging AI to strengthen fraud detection, automate investigations and improve operational efficiency. At the same time, speakers agreed that human judgement remains essential, particularly in complex or high risk scenarios.
Finally, the rise of agentic commerce, digital assets and blockchain technologies is creating new opportunities alongside new risks. As financial services continue to evolve, organisations will need to develop increasingly sophisticated approaches to identity, trust and risk management to stay ahead of emerging threats.
