October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the US—although those in fintech and financial services can be forgiven for feeling as if every month is cybersecurity awareness month.
This is not to say that the threat of fraud and financial crime is any less important in health care, consumer technology, or any other sector of the economy. But the facts are hard to ignore. According to the New York Federal Reserve, financial services companies face 300x more cyber attacks compared to companies in other industries. After all, that’s where the money is—to say nothing of a treasure trove of data on banking customers, borrowers, investors, and more.
Additionally, the impact of fraud and financial crime on financial services companies and their customers can be significantly greater, as well. Estimates indicate that the average breach cost in the financial sector is more than $6 million, compared to the global average of $4.9 million. In fact, the financial services sector is second only to healthcare when it comes to the average cost of a data breach.
Released in the first half of the year, Alloy’s 2025 State of Fraud Report noted that a sizable number (60%) of financial institutions and fintechs reported fraud growth across both consumer and business accounts over the past year. The good news is that, unlike in AI, where there remains some skepticism about the potential benefits versus costs and risks, Alloy observed that 87% of institutions queried believed that investing in fraud prevention—especially via deploying identity risk solutions, building in-house anti-fraud solutions, and adding talent to fraud teams—outweighed the costs.
More recent reports on fraud and financial crime underscore additional challenges. The Kroll 2025 Financial Crime Report, which surveyed 600 international executives, noted that a growing number of executives fear an acceleration in financial crime, with 71% believing financial crime risks will increase in 2025 compared to 67% in 2023. Alarmingly, the executives also confessed a sizable gap between their concerns about the accelerating pace of financial crime and their own organization’s preparedness to fight it, with only 23% of those surveyed believing their compliance programs were up to the task.
As for the question of whether AI is an effective tool to fight financial crime or a new and dangerous weapon in the hands of fraudsters, the answer, unsurprisingly, is “yes.” Just over half of those executives surveyed (57%) believe AI is a benefit to fighting financial crime while just under half (49%) believe AI represents a significant risk and vector for fraud.
Best of Show winners lead the fight against financial crime
With fraud and financial crime threats on the rise, it is no surprise to see a growing number of companies on the Finovate stage whose innovations are dedicated to fighting fraud, scams, and other financial crime. In fact, 2025 was the first year since COVID that featured a fraud fighter in every Best of Show winning cohort: FinovateEurope, FinovateSpring, and FinovateFall.
Here’s a look at some of our Best of Show winning alums from recent years who are innovating in the field of financial crime and fraud prevention.
Casap – Offers a co-pilot and collaboration platform that fully automates dispute management and empowers financial institutions and fintechs to more effectively fight first-person fraud.
Herd Security – Leverages AI-driven detections, training content, phishing simulations, and exercises to make users an active and engaged part of defending their companies and organizations from fraud and cybercrime.
Keyless – Equips companies with biometric authentication technology that reduces account takeover (ATO) fraud by up to 80%, and verifies a user’s genuine identity in addition to their device in 300ms or less.
Illuma – Offers a real-time voice authentication solution that replaces traditional knowledge-based authentication, enhances the caller experience, and improves operational efficiency while preventing fraud in contact centers.
Corsound AI – Leverages 200+ patents to provide voice-to-face and real-time deepfake detection. The company’s technology leverages the unique correlation between voice and facial features to authenticate identities accurately.
1Kosmos – Combines identity proofing, credential verification, and strong authentication to enable remote identity verification and passwordless multi-factor authentication to enable workers, customers, and residents to securely utilize digital services.
Trulioo – Covering 195 countries, Trulioo offers an identity platform that verifies more than 14,000 ID documents and 700 million businesses, while checking against more than 6,000 watchlists.
Photo by Thorium on Unsplash
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