E X P E R T C O L U M N
E X P E R T C O L U M N
IS IT TIME TO ENGINEER SCEPTICISM INTO EVERYDAY MONEY?
By Sindhu Kashyap, Senior Content Strategist, Middle East and Africa
Perfect fakes make certainty cheap. Build doubt into workflows – live challenges for new counterparties, behavioural analytics for the‘ impossible’ and rails-level name-matching.
ere’ s the uncomfortable truth about fraud in 2025:
H it no longer knocks on the front door. It slips through our habits – speed, convenience, trust and borrows familiar voices. This could be a convincing video call from a CEO or CFT, a WhatsApp note in your manager’ s cadence, a refund screen that coaxes a one-time passcode. Controls didn’ t vanish – the theatre of persuasion improved. And it’ s happening everywhere.
The figures reveal the truth clearly. The FBI recorded US $ 16.6 billion in losses in 2024, with crypto-related fraud among the fastest-growing issues. UK finance still reports more than £ 1 billion stolen each year despite improved detection efforts. The US consumer regulator reported US $ 12.5 billion in losses. What appears local is, in reality, part of a global network of deception.
Real-time rails are amplifiers for good and ill. The EU has hardwired instant payments with Verification of Payee( VoP) and fee parity, signalling that protection belongs inside the pipes, not only at the edges.
Come October 9, 2025, VoP becomes table stakes across euro-area PSPs. Globally, SWIFT ends the CBPR + coexistence period on November 22,
2025, completing the pivot to ISO 20022 and unlocking richer data for screening and analytics. Progress, yes – but also new terrain for attackers to probe.
SWIFT will end the CBPR + coexistence period in November 2025, completing the pivot to ISO 20022: richer data for analytics and screening, but a more expansive playground for attackers. Schemes like Pix and India’ s UPI are expanding fast, prompting stricter checks on identity, name-matching and throttles.
The stagecraft has levelled up. Europol’ s latest assessments describe deepfakes and synthetic identities as plug-and-play tools, collapsing the usefulness of call-backs and trivia-based checks: the voice sounds right, the face looks right, the meeting background is plausible. If you design controls on the assumption that fakes are imperfect, you will be relieved, until you aren’ t. Design for perfect fakes instead.
Zooming into the Gulf, we see the future of fraud and payments converging. In the UAE, Al Etihad Payments’ Aani has normalised instant, alias-based transfers via mobile, email and QR codes. Regulators now require stronger authentication: the Central Bank of UAE aims to replace SMS / email OTPs with phishing-resistant, biometric, app-based methods by 2026.
Dubai’ s VARA has also shown teeth – publicly warning firms against misrepresenting involvement in a real estate tokenisation pilot. These moves all push trust enforcement inside the user journey, not just at the edges. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sarie
offers 24 / 7 instant payments via mobile and ID aliases, needing improved name matching and anomaly detection. SAMA’ s Framework helps banks assess maturity and address gaps. The Open Banking Framework promotes secure data sharing.
So what works across EMEA and beyond?
Treat authentication as a product, not a policy: replace SMS OTPs with passkeys / FIDO-grade factors, ensuring easy recovery and portability. Make rails controls like VoP name-matching, risk holds and behavioural analytics standard, not optional. Lastly, practise the pause.
Fraud is now psychology-driven. Equip teams with scripts for checks and live challenges – no stigma. Assume a breach and invest in rapid recovery, including bank escalation, automation and quick indicator sharing. The longer funds are in motion, the harder they are to recover.
EMEA is a testbed and leader: Europe incorporates security, while the Middle East and Africa rapidly adopt mobile. Globally, the lesson is to make safety easy across technical, procedural and cultural aspects. �
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