Singapore Banks Report A Rising Wave Of Fraud

SINGAPORE – Banks are dealing with a massive surge in criminal activity and fraud attempts. Nine out of 10 banking executives admit that attacks on their institutions are increasing every single day.

This growing wave of crime is causing serious financial pain for both banks and their customers. A new survey commissioned by BioCatch reveals that 75% of banking leaders in Singapore are reporting rising fraud losses.

Key Takeaways

91% of banking executives in Singapore say fraud attempts are going up.
75% of these leaders report higher financial losses, beating both global and regional averages.
Bank leaders now worry more about direct financial harm than a damaged reputation.
Social engineering scams remain the biggest threat facing the banking industry today.

The financial losses in Singapore are significantly higher than in other parts of the world. While 75% of local banks report rising losses, the regional average is only 67%. The global average sits even lower at 60%, showing how heavily Singapore is being targeted.

Thomas Peacock, the director of global fraud intelligence at BioCatch, shared an interesting insight about this trend. He noted that Singapore is one of only three countries surveyed where the financial impact of fraud is a bigger concern than reputational damage. This highlights a clear shift in how bank leaders view the current threats.

Key insight: The high rate of financial loss in Singapore is driving a massive shift in priorities, making it one of the few regions where direct monetary loss outweighs reputation damage.

“This is especially pronounced amongst those respondents working in fraud roles,” Peacock said. He added that more than three-quarters of these professionals identify financial losses as their primary concern. The sheer volume of attacks is forcing banks to rethink how they protect their money.

The Rise of Social Engineering Scams

More than half of the survey respondents pointed to social engineering scams as the most common threat. These scams do not rely on hacking into a computer system or breaking a password. Instead, criminals use psychological tricks to manipulate people into handing over their cash.

Among compliance professionals, social engineering was ranked as the absolute biggest danger. Criminals will often pretend to be a trusted authority figure, like a police officer or a bank employee. They use fear and urgency to convince victims to transfer funds to a “safe” account.

Many of the current losses are driven by authorized push payment (APP) scams. In these scenarios, the victim actually authorizes the bank to send the money to the scammer. Around 42% of banking leaders identify APP scams as the most significant threat they face today.

Because the customer is the one pressing the “send” button, these transactions are extremely hard to block. The bank’s security systems simply see a verified user making a standard money transfer. By the time the victim realizes they have been tricked, the money is already gone.

Why Traditional Defenses Are Struggling?

The banking industry is finding it difficult to stop these types of manipulated transactions. Subhashish Bose, global advisory director at BioCatch, explained why this is such a tough problem to solve. He said banks need much stronger tools to figure out when their customers are being controlled by fraudsters.

“The industry’s next challenge is building and deploying defences that can distinguish between a genuine customer acting independently and one being manipulated by a criminal,” Bose said. When a real customer logs in with the correct password, traditional security systems assume everything is fine. They cannot tell if someone is holding a phone to the customer’s ear and telling them what to do.

This is a major reason why traditional security controls are failing to stop the rising losses. Banks cannot simply lock an account when the actual owner is the one trying to move the funds. This shifts the focus from simply verifying passwords to actually understanding the intent behind the transaction.

AI Increases the Sophistication of Attacks

Another major concern for the banking industry is the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Criminals are now using AI to make their scams look and sound more believable than ever before. Across the Asia Pacific region, 86% of financial institution leaders believe AI has increased the sophistication of fraud.

This is not just a future threat, as many banks are already seeing it happen in real-time. About 79% of banking leaders say their institutions have already encountered attacks using agentic AI. These AI tools can run automated attacks, generate fake voices, and create highly convincing phishing emails.

As many as 78% of the respondents believe it will be very challenging to spot AI-assisted actions in the coming year. When a scammer uses AI to perfectly mimic a bank’s official communication, customers are much more likely to fall for the trick. This makes the job of protecting customer accounts incredibly difficult.

A New Focus on Human Behavior

To fight back against these sophisticated attacks, banks are turning to new technology. They are increasing their focus on behavioral biometrics to strengthen their fraud detection systems. This technology looks at how a person interacts with their device, rather than just checking their password.

Behavioral biometrics can analyze how fast you type, how you move your mouse, or how you hold your phone. If a user is suddenly typing much slower or hesitating before clicking, the system can flag the transaction as suspicious. This helps banks catch scammers who are guiding a victim through a transfer step-by-step.

While 36% of respondents said their bank has already deployed this technology, adoption is expected to grow quickly. Three-quarters of the banks that have not adopted it yet are actively evaluating it for future use. As the threats continue to evolve, these advanced tools will become a basic requirement for keeping customers safe.

Getting Ready for New Regulations

Banks in Singapore are also facing pressure from regulators to step up their game. Most respondents believe their bank is at least mostly prepared to meet new Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) requirements. However, there is a serious lack of confidence among the people actually fighting the fraud.

Only 14% of fraud professionals feel their organization is fully prepared for the new Shared Responsibility Framework. This framework requires things like a 12-hour cooling-off period for new security tokens and real-time alerts. These changes put more responsibility on the banks to stop the fraud before the money leaves the account.

Interestingly, the survey found that banks in Singapore are less likely to reimburse scam victims than banks in other countries. Only 27% of respondents said their institution reimburses more than half of the money lost to scams. The global average for this kind of reimbursement is much higher at 44%.