Trends and innovations in secure banking for 2025

Brad Cranford

A version of this article first appeared in the January BAI Executive Report: Fortifying your fraud defenses. Find more insight within from industry experts who help banking leaders keep step with fraud-fighting developments, including empowering staff and smoothing customer experiences.

It’s a scenario many have experienced or have anticipated with dread: It’s early, and you’re awoken by a text message alert, asking if you are initiating a large transfer out of your bank account. Your stomach drops. As fast as you can, you search for the phone number to your bank and thankfully, customer support answers and is calming and reassuring. Was this the only unauthorized activity? Or just one of many? What’s happening? Who is doing this? What can be done if your money is gone?

Within a few moments though, you’re told that while you were still sleeping, your bank’s sophisticated software flagged the anomaly, halting an instant payment fraud attempt before it drained the account. The text alert was to flag the activity happening behind the scenes, just in case it was not fraud after all. “Better to be safe, than sorry,” the customer service operator explains. The account is now frozen, and the bank is issuing you a new card; you will also receive information on how to follow up with the three credit bureaus. Before you hang up you know what has happened, what is happening next, and how to better protect yourself in the future.

This urgency is the reality of today’s digital world. High-stakes moments like these are increasingly common for your business and retail accountholders. As digital banking technology accelerates to keep pace with consumer demands, the necessity for secure banking practices has never been greater.

In 2025, deploying secure banking measures will be both a technical mandate and strategic initiative to safeguard account holders’ and institutional assets; financial institutions must be prepared to combat modern problems with modern, proactive solutions.

The scale of fraud in digital banking

The shift to digital has been accompanied by a wave of novel fraud tactics, from credential stuffing to instant payments fraud and impersonation scams driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Today’s banking consumers are increasingly accessing their funds digitally, with as many as 48% of banking consumers preferring to use mobile devices to access and manage their bank accounts, according to a study conducted by ABA. The stakes are high. Financial institutions face annual fraud-related losses in the billions. And economy-wide, according to the 2024 Global Financial Crime Report by Nasdaq, financial crime is a multi-trillion-dollar-problem. For 2023, fraud scams and bank fraud schemes totaled $485.6 billion in losses globally.

By category and by region, Nasdaq reports that check fraud in the Americas ($21 billion) represented nearly 80% of the global check fraud last year. While check fraud certainly is a growing concern for U.S. bankers, criminals are sinking their teeth into account holders through many other means, Nasdaq reports:

Payments fraud: $102.6 billion
Credit card fraud: $13.6 billion
Cyber-enabled scams: $5 billion
Advance fee scams: $4.7 billion
Impersonation scams: $1.6 billion
Employment scams: $1.6 billion
Confidence scams: $0.9 billion

In response, leading financial institutions are not only needing to reinforce their traditional security measures but also adopting use of consortium data, positive pay, AI-driven fraud detection and real-time monitoring as the backbone of secure banking. And, according to researchers and analysts from Datos Insights, nearly all (92%) of U.S. banks and credit unions agree that it is more important than ever for business customers to protect themselves from payment fraud with positive pay.

Positive security: Foundational practices for the next generation

To confront these fraud types effectively, institutions must adopt foundational practices that integrate security into every layer of the digital banking experience. These include:

Real-time monitoring and behavioral biometrics: This approach ensures that anomalies are detected instantly, allowing for immediate intervention.
Intuitive and secure Design: A user friendly yet secure interface not only reduces human error but also guides account holders and staff through a safe, reliable experience.
Consortium data intelligence: Leveraging industry-wide intelligence strengthens fraud defenses across institutions by pooling insights on emerging threats, helping financial institutions identify and respond to novel fraud tactics proactively.

Fast, frictionless digital banking experiences can still be secure. By implementing a layered approach to security and fraud prevention that balances user experience, institutions can meet these challenges head-on. With these secure banking practices as a foundation, financial institutions are well-prepared to tackle specific fraud challenges.

Addressing the top emerging fraud threats in 2025

Below, I delve into key fraud types that are shaping the need for secure banking strategies and highlight best practices for combating each:

Payments fraud: Payments fraud is intensifying, driven by instant payments and evolving tactics like account takeover (ATO), business email compromise (BEC), and social engineering. These sophisticated schemes press financial institutions to invest continuously in advanced fraud prevention and security solutions such as:

AI-powered monitoring that detects anomalies in real time, identifying and halting suspicious transactions instantly.
Transaction limits and real-time alerts ensure transactions align with account holder behavior, giving users direct control and visibility over their account activity.
Check and ACH positive pay for business or commercial bankers, gives businesses control to monitor fraudulent transactions.

Credential stuffing: Credential stuffing involves hackers using breached credentials from one site to attempt access to bank accounts. This method costs financial institutions an estimated $6 billion annually. To counter this:

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and behavioral analytics provide layered protection, detecting suspicious behavior and verifying identities with an additional step.
Education on password hygiene encourages account holders to create unique, secure passwords, reducing the effectiveness of credential stuffing.

Impersonation scams: Impersonation scams have cost financial institutions and consumers over $2 billion annually. These scams often involve fraudsters posing as trusted entities to deceive account holders. Key defenses include:

Behavioral biometrics and voice verification that identify unusual voice patterns or behaviors, verifying account holders’ identities.
Training frontline staff to recognize red flags, empowering teams to intervene during potential scam interactions.
Training account holders to understand the behaviors their institution would truly exhibit so they can better notice common suspicious requests of scammers. For example, including within authorization code text messages a line that says, “We will never ask you for this code.”

AI fraud and deepfakes: The rise of AI-driven deepfakes has added a new dimension to digital fraud, with losses mounting as criminals deploy sophisticated synthetic identities. To defend against these:

AI-powered detection systems track deviations in video and voice patterns that may indicate deepfake usage.
Consortium data sharing enhances detection by pooling insights on AI fraud techniques, helping institutions adapt to emerging AI-driven threats collectively.

Automated clearing house (ACH) aggregation scenarios: As account holders increasingly link multiple accounts across institutions, ACH transactions face unique risks. Combatting payments fraud involves:

Tokenization and encryption to secure data as it moves across systems.
Machine learning algorithms to identify irregular patterns in ACH transactions, flagging unauthorized transfers or unusual account linkages.
ACH positive pay gives businesses control to monitor fraudulent transactions and generate revenue for the institution.

Future-proofing against fraud with resilient digital ecosystems

The evolving nature of fraud calls for a mindset of continuous improvement. Building resilient digital ecosystems involves not only adopting the latest technologies but fostering a collaborative, security-first culture. According to Alkami’s 2025 Digital Banking Playbook, the journey to secure banking involves integrating security into every layer of the institution’s infrastructure.

Furthermore, consortium data collaboration allows financial institutions to keep pace with rapidly evolving fraud tactics, sharing real-time intelligence to stay a step ahead. By pooling resources and insights, financial institutions can enhance detection accuracy, speed up response times, and ultimately foster a comprehensive approach to digital security.

The impact of financial crimes cannot be overstated

For financial institutions, secure banking practices must be woven into all educational and digital transformation initiatives, making fraud prevention a proactive element of the financial institutions’ value proposition. By adopting real-time monitoring, behavioral biometrics and consortium data insights, financial institutions can build a long-lasting reputation as trusted, resilient partners and employers.

Secure banking goes beyond traditional defenses. With credential stuffing, real-time payments fraud, impersonation scams, AI-generated fraud, and more, financial institutions must stay proactive and adaptable. By deploying these leading-edge strategies, financial institutions can deliver a safe and seamless experience for account holders while positioning themselves as forward-thinking leaders in secure banking.

Brad Cranford is Director, Product Management at Alkami.