BioCatch has published survey findings showing that 84% of banking leaders in India report rising fraud losses. Among 25 countries surveyed, India ranked highest for concern about the speed of fraud.
The survey covered 100 fraud management, anti-money laundering, risk and compliance leaders at Indian financial institutions as part of a wider study of 1,440 banking executives across five continents.
Indian respondents reported a sharper rise in fraud pressure than the global average. Some 90% said fraud attempts at their institution had increased over the past year, compared with 81% globally. Meanwhile, 84% said fraud losses had risen, versus 76% globally.
Those figures were notably higher than a year earlier in India, when 70% of respondents said fraud attempts were increasing and 57% said fraud losses were rising.
The findings also show growing concern in India about the pace and changing methods of fraud. Around 95% of Indian banking leaders said they were very concerned about the increase in the speed of fraudulent activity, compared with 76% globally.
Loss estimates suggest the financial impact can be substantial. Nearly half of Indian respondents, or 48%, said their institution loses more than USD $10 million to fraud each year. Another 32% put annual losses above USD $25 million, 16% above USD $50 million and 6% above USD $100 million.
Customer losses from authorised fraud and scams were also significant. Some 58% said their customers lose more than USD $5 million a year, while 44% estimated more than USD $10 million, 19% more than USD $25 million, 7% more than USD $50 million and 2% more than USD $100 million.
AI concerns
The study found widespread concern about the effect of artificial intelligence on financial crime. Among Indian banking leaders, 93% said AI had increased the sophistication of fraud and scam schemes, above the global figure of 88%.
Regarding AI agents, 83% of Indian respondents said they could be the industry's next-largest exploitable vulnerability for fraudsters in the coming year. Globally, the figure was 84%.
Indian respondents were more likely than their global peers to say banks would struggle to distinguish genuine AI-assisted activity from manipulated or malicious actions. Some 90% said this would be very challenging, compared with 72% worldwide.
Deepfakes were another area where Indian banks reported heightened exposure. Around 64% of respondents in India said they had seen scammers use deepfakes over the past year to enhance social engineering and impersonation scams, compared with a global average of 50%.
A separate global finding showed that 60% of respondents expect AI-mediated banking to reduce the effectiveness of traditional fraud defences. Across all markets, 72% said it would be very difficult to distinguish legitimate AI-assisted actions from malicious or manipulated AI activity in a future where AI agents commonly initiate transactions.
Gadi Mazor, Chief Executive Officer of BioCatch, commented on the broader shift in fraud patterns.
"AI is starting to reshape how customers interact with eCommerce sites and financial institutions and will change how criminals execute fraud and other financial crimes," 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 behavior, intent, and trust," he added.
Payments and data sharing
Instant payments featured prominently in responses from India. Two-thirds of Indian banking leaders (66%) identified scam attempts on instant payment platforms as the main driver of fraud in the country. That compares with a global average of 59%, which cited instant payments as the leading driver of increased fraud attempts in their markets.
The survey also indicated support for greater information sharing among banks. In India, 94% of respondents said interbank intelligence sharing could have a significant positive impact on their ability to stop fraud and financial crime, compared with 85% globally.
Access to real-time information about the receiving account in a transaction was seen as particularly important. Some 93% of Indian banking leaders said such intelligence would have a significant impact on their ability to identify and stop scams, against 86% worldwide.
Another finding suggested Indian banks are tracking the commercial effect of fraud more closely than many international peers. About 60% of respondents in India said their bank actively measures and reports customer attrition linked to fraud, compared with 47% globally.
The respondent base was weighted towards senior decision-makers. All participants were manager-level or above; 62% were director-level or above; and 31% said they were members of the C-suite.
Most worked at sizeable institutions. Nearly all respondents were employed by banks with more than USD $10 million under management, while 64% said their bank held more than USD $100 million in assets, 49% more than USD $1 billion and 22% more than USD $10 billion.
Among all countries in the study, India stood out for the strength of concern over fraud becoming faster and harder to detect as banks confront more AI-assisted and socially engineered attacks.