AI Industry Press Releases

AI agents raise new fraud challenge for UK banks, BioCatch survey finds

MRKT 3.0

June 10, 2026

84% of UK fraud leaders say AI has increased the sophistication of fraud and scam schemes
75% say distinguishing legitimate AI-assisted banking activity from malicious or manipulated activity will be very challenging
73% say fraud attempts at their institution are increasing, while 64% say fraud losses are rising
76% say real-time intelligence on receiving accounts would significantly improve their ability to recognise and stop scams

LONDON (June 10, 2026) — UK banks are preparing for a new phase of AI-driven fraud, as new BioCatch research shows artificial intelligence is making scams more sophisticated and harder to distinguish from legitimate digital activity.

The UK findings, based on survey responses from 80 fraud-management, financial crime prevention, and risk and compliance professionals, show 84% believe AI has increased the sophistication of fraud and scam schemes, while 75% say distinguishing legitimate AI-assisted banking activity from malicious or manipulated activity will be very challenging.

UK respondents also reported rising fraud pressure, with 73% saying fraud attempts at their institution are increasing and 64% saying fraud losses are rising. 76% said real-time intelligence on receiving accounts would significantly improve their ability to recognise and stop scams.

The findings come as UK banks face continued pressure from scams, mule accounts and increasingly sophisticated social engineering attacks, alongside the operational impact of mandatory reimbursement rules for authorised push payment fraud. Agentic AI adds a further challenge by forcing banks to identify whether activity reflects genuine customer intent, legitimate automation or criminal manipulation before money moves.

“Agentic AI is making fraud faster, more scalable, and harder to detect,” said Jonathan Frost, Global Advisory, EMEA, BioCatch. “UK banks should prioritise early prevention in the payment process. Although strong reimbursement rules protect victims after fraud, they do not prevent emotional harm, disrupt mule accounts, or stop criminals from profiting. Criminals will inevitably use AI, potentially leading to exponential growth in fraud. Only behavioural insights, shared in real time across the sector, can detect customer manipulation, assess user intent, identify mules, and support a risk-based approach to friction.”

The UK findings are part of a global BioCatch survey of 1,440 fraud-management, anti-money laundering (AML), and risk and compliance leaders at banks in 25 countries on five continents.

Globally, 84% of respondents see AI agents as the industry’s greatest exploitable vulnerability in the next year, 88% say AI has already increased the sophistication of fraud, 60% expect AI-mediated banking to reduce the effectiveness of traditional fraud defences, and 72% believe it will be very difficult to distinguish between legitimate AI-assisted actions and malicious or manipulated AI activity in a future where AI agents commonly initiate transactions.

“AI is starting to reshape how customers interact with e-commerce sites and financial institutions and will change how criminals execute fraud and other financial crimes,” BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor said. “As digital interactions continue to grow faster, more automated, and increasingly driven by agents, we must move beyond static identity checks and toward a deeper and immediate understanding of behaviour, intent, and trust.”

Commissioned by BioCatch, which prevents fraud and financial crime by recognising patterns in human behaviour, the survey also shows the rampant growth of fraud all around the world. In the 2025 version of this report, 71% of respondents reported increasing fraud attempts at their organisation. In 2026, that rose to 81%. Even more significantly, the number of respondents reporting increasing year-over-year fraud losses at their bank grew from 59% to 76%. Nearly half of those surveyed this year say their organisation loses more than $10 million a year to fraud, 20% more than $25 million, and 5% more than $50 million.

World banking leaders surveyed — all manager-level or above, 79% director-level or above, 23% in their bank’s C-suite — also indicate significant appetite for collaboration. A majority of respondents (86%) say gaining real-time intelligence sharing on the receiving account in an interbank transaction would improve their bank’s ability to stop scams, while 85% say interbank intel-sharing would help it stop fraud and financial crime. In the UK, 76% said real-time intelligence on the receiving account would significantly improve their ability to recognise and stop scams.

This matters because many scams begin outside the banking session, while stolen funds are often moved quickly through mule accounts. Receiving-account intelligence can help banks identify risk before the money disappears.

Other key findings:

AI-mediated banking could weaken traditional signals: In the UK, 61% of respondents expect widespread AI-mediated banking to reduce the effectiveness of traditional fraud signals, slightly above the 60% global average. This reinforces the shift from verifying identity alone to understanding behaviour and intent.

Agentic AI attacks are already here: Four-fifths (80%) of respondents say their institution has already encountered attacks utilising agentic AI.

Fraud is accelerating: Globally, 76% of respondents said they are very concerned about the increasing speed of fraudulent activity in their region. In the UK, 70% said the same, below the global average but still a strong majority.
Customer trust is a priority: More than 96% of respondents say their institution already measures customer attrition specific to fraud and scam experiences, while 39% say it’s a primary driver of investment decisions.

Blanket friction is a problem: Globally, 68% of banking leaders believe their organisation’s approach to fraud and financial crime prevention and reimbursement has resulted in a net loss of customers. While more than half (56%) attribute this loss of customers to unreimbursed losses, the remaining 44% blame any customer attrition at their institution on too much friction.

UK respondents report lower claim rejections and customer losses: Only 19% of UK respondents said their organisation rejects more than $5 million in fraud claims annually, compared with 59% globally. Similarly, just 14% said their bank’s customers lose more than $10 million to fraud and scams every year, substantially below the 39% global average.