Authorised push payment (APP) scams involve scammers convincing their victims to make payments they believe are legitimate, when in fact they're sending money directly to the fraudsters. The pattern and trends of APP Scams are consistent globally and our data shows the most popular typologies as well as how these are evolving.
APP scams are global, transcend borders and affect all jurisdictions. The interconnected global economy and the ease with which information and money can be transferred across borders means one instance of an APP fraud can affect multiple financial institutions worldwide. It is estimated that global scam losses amount to billions each year.
KPMG's Global Banking Scam Survey encompasses the views of 48 banks in 16 countries to identify trends and best practice that helps these institutions to protect consumers.
Global banking scam survey insights
Governance
Our survey highlighted how banks are positioning scam governance structures, either by integrating them with fraud prevention or by establishing dedicated scam strategies and policies.
Prevention
We asked participants to rate the efficacy of the most popular APP scam protection measures implemented to protect individuals and organisations from scams occurring and gained insight into how they protect vulnerable customers at risk of scams.
Detection
Participants were asked to rate the efficacy of the most popular APP scam detection measures and provided insights into how they analyse customer data to detect potentially fraudulent activity.
Trends
Our survey uncovered global trends in APP scams within the banking sector, aiming to highlight emerging patterns and new typologies that banks should be aware of.
Response
We asked banks about the structure and responsibilities of their fraud operations teams and how they investigated and resolved scam alerts.
Intelligence
We explored the different approaches that the banks take to data sharing, some of the limitations in place and why this was considered a priority.
Brand protection
We asked banks if they monitored the dark web and undertook other measures to protect their brands in the current digital landscape.
Next-generation technology
Banks were asked for their views on the use of orchestration layers and the next-generation anti-APP scam technologies to prevent, detect, and respond to APP scams.
Customer education
We asked banks to rate the efficacy of popular customer education and awareness initiatives used by banks globally and other initiatives implemented by them.
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FAQs
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What are the most common types of APP scams? Our data found the most common APP Scams are:
- e-commerce and purchase scams
- investment scams
- sophisticated impersonation scams (including bank employees, CEOs and authority figures).
- romance scams.
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How can my organisation protect customers from scammers? Our research found the best approach is a combination of several proactive and reactive methods. These may include pausing or blocking transactions and accounts, contacting customers, warning messages in the online or app banking experiences and real time monitoring of inbound customer activities.
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What emerging technology should my organisation consider in protecting us and our customers from APP scams? Fifty-nine percent of survey participants said their technology stack used an orchestration layer which integrates multiple data sources into a single system to allow faster and more accurate decision making as well as easier interrogation in the case of cyber incidents. Other next-generation technology in consideration included behavioural analytics, deepfake detection and generative AI-produced dynamic warnings.
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Are education programs effective for reducing the number of customers who fall victim to APP scams? All our participants felt that education was a process of continual engagement across multiple platforms, rather than a single effort. A few banks said campaigns were effective for a short time. Some were considering other approaches, including:
- industry partnerships and collaborations
- tailored messages about fraud trend used on hold messages at contact centres
- seasonal initiatives targeting holidays like Christmas or events like major concerts
- compulsory e-learning modules about cryptocurrencies before they could open a digital wallet.
