The FBI warns of cyber criminals impersonating financial institutions to steal money or information in Account Takeover (ATO) fraud schemes. The cyber criminals target individuals, businesses, and organizations of varied sizes and across sectors. In ATO fraud, cyber criminals gain unauthorized access to the targeted online financial institution, payroll, or health savings account, with the goal of stealing money or information for personal gain. Since January 2025, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received more than 5,100 complaints reporting ATO fraud, with losses exceeding $262 million.

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Fraud expert: This is the first sign you’re being targeted by a scammer (and most people overlook it) Here’s how to spot “phantom payments,” plus six tips to safeguard your money.

Nov 26 2025

How close of an eye do you keep on your checking account — would you notice if $1 went missing? Most people think of financial fraud showing up as a large, unusual charge on their bank account, but it’s the little transactions that can actually be the biggest red flags. Called “phantom payments,” these small charges are a scammer’s way to test the validity and activity of your account before wiping it clean, explains Danai Antoniou, former fraud systems engineer and co-founder at Gradient Labs, an AI platform for financial services. In a world where financial fraud is certainly on the rise — it’s affected 29% of checking, savings or debit account holders and 24% of credit card customers in the past 12 months alone (many more than once), per J.D. Power 

Read what else to be on the lookout for, especially during a popular shopping season.

How compliance errors damage financial institutions

November 25, 2025

Regulators no longer tolerate the excuses that were once accepted a decade ago, and the margin for error has narrowed significantly. Despite this, some firms still approach reporting as a year-end administrative task, leaving themselves exposed to issues that can escalate quickly, claims Label.

Misreporting carries real consequences, and its impact extends far beyond the moment an incorrect file is submitted. The damage affects the institution, its customers, and the regulators who must respond when controls fail.

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Smartmatic charged in US bribery case over Philippine contracts

MANILA, Philippines — Vote count machine provider Smartmatic has been formally charged in the United States over a bribery and money laundering case that also involves former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andres Bautista. The US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida on Thursday confirmed that a federal grand jury in Miami returned a superseding indictment to the alleged bribery scheme in relation to the 2016 general elections in the Philippines. The superseding indictment charged SGO Corp. Ltd., commonly known as Smartmatic Group, with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.

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The new face of cyber fraud: Why retailers must stop turning a blind eye

22nd Nov 2025

Cyber fraud in Australia is evolving at a pace that should alarm every employer, parent and policymaker. What once required sophisticated breaches now relies on something far simpler: human vulnerability, LinkedIn visibility and retailers who fail to recognise obvious warning signs. The newest victims are not wealthy executives or large corporations. They are international students who come to Australia seeking education and safe employment, only to find themselves targeted by organised fraud rings operating with disturbing efficiency. In recent months I have seen this pattern emerge repeatedly inside my own business. The attackers begin by trawling LinkedIn, searching for young graduates and students who proudly update their profiles with new roles, new companies and, in many cases, personal email addresses. This is not their mistake; it is what the platform encourages as part of professional identity-building. But cyber criminals now use this as a harvesting ground.

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Integrity and Internal Controls: The Two Pillars of Trust

21 Nov.2025

At the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit held in Gyeongju last October, member countries discussed ways to cooperate for sustainable growth and inclusive prosperity. The core message of the summit was clear: "There can be no sustainable growth without transparent and clean systems."

This declaration is not limited to a statement at the level of an economic cooperation body. It also resonates deeply with public institutions in South Korea, which operate based on public trust. Integrity and internal controls are no longer optional; they are essential conditions that determine the future of sustainable organizations and the nation. Trust in public institutions is not built overnight. Such trust cannot be earned solely through transparent accounting or courteous service. Public trust is only fully established when the value of "integrity" and the system of "internal controls" work together in harmony.

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Scams aren’t just fraud — they’re engineered to exploit human nature

One of the most fundamental distinctions in financial security is this: Every scam is a fraud, but not all fraud is a scam. During this week’s International Fraud Awareness Week, it’s worth pausing to note what makes scams different — and why that difference matters more than ever in 2025.

Traditional fraud typically exploits weak systems, such as stolen credentials, manipulated data, or technical vulnerabilities. Scams, on the other hand, exploit something far more powerful and harder to patch — human nature itself. Scams can weaponize trust, urgency, and emotion; and when those psychological levers are pulled at just the right moment, even savvy people can find themselves wiring money to someone they’ll never see again. The numbers tell a sobering story. More than 1-in-5 (22%) of adults report losing money to scams

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The Future of Financial Fraud: The Sophistication of Common Scams

Americans lost $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024 — a staggering 25% increase from 2023. This increase comes despite the number of consumer fraud incidents staying relatively flat year-over-year since 2020, Federal Trade Commission numbers show. A September 2025 Payments System Research Briefing published by the Kansas City Fed notes two key trends in contact and payment methods used for scams that potentially contributed to this increase in losses. The research, conducted by Fumiko Hayashi, vice president of economic research, and Ying Lei Toh, senior economist, found that scammers increasingly contact victims using more novel and interactive methods such as social media, websites and mobile apps. When coupled with the use of artificial intelligence (AI), these methods enable scammers to create especially convincing scams. Scammers also are increasingly directing victims to use newer methods of payment, like cryptocurrencies and payment apps, which provide victims with little to no possibility of stopping or reversing a scam payment.

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