Global businesses when it comes to the digital side of their business need to careful when it comes to the issue of fraud. From issues originating from financial misstatements to a problematic issue of identity theft, these days we are seeing more and more fraudulent activities affecting businesses.
Fraud can come in various forms from obvious ones to extremely discrete ones that could go undetected if not careful. All putting the business, its customers and even suppliers at risk.
In this article, we look at some of the biggest fraud trends that are impacting businesses today and explore what’s at risk if they don’t protect themselves.
Key fraud trends and how they affect businesses
Fraudsters are becoming increasing cleverer, even updating their fraud tactics to keep up to date with technological changes. Keeping themselves up to date with business models and changing regulations allows them to follow patterns and what you would call ‘trend cycles’ so that they can adapt their methodology to continue committing their crimes seamlessly. Below we will look through some of the latest trends that are shaping risk profiles for businesses of all sizes.
Synthetic identity and digital account fraud
Synthetic identity fraud is on the rise. This is where fraudsters create fictitious identities by combining fake and real data to do various things like open accounts or commit loan or benefit fraud.
Synthetic identity fraud can be hard for authorities and businesses to detect because the identity appears legitimate. As a result of this, there is an increased pressure of getting identity verification systems set up and better onboarding processes. For payments they have also been looking into ways to check fraud risk management, to ensure all angles are covered even down to the security on a single check.
Cyber scams, account takeover and remote exploitation
Cyber scam networks and account takeovers remain a major issue for businesses, while fraud that’s centred on digital payments, remote social-engineering and authorised push payments are also on the rise. This can put remote-work infrastructure, payment systems and customer portals at risk for businesses, resulting in chargebacks, operational disruption as well as reputational damage.
Insider threats and business process fraud
Businesses need to keep a close eye on their internal vulnerabilities as much as the external ones. Insides including contractors, partners and employees can pose a risk, with weak internal controls and negligence being contributing factors to fraud.
The rise of remote and hybrid working as well as complex IT environments has only amplified this risk, which is one that businesses should take seriously and consider as part of their cyber-security plans.
What’s at risk for businesses
With the rise of these trends come some clear impacts on businesses. These include:
Revenue and profitability
Revenue and profitability are integral to a business’s success. Fraud-induced losses have the potential of reducing margins, increasing chargebacks and raising operational costs. They can also result in the cancellation of contracts or partnerships should things go wrong. Which would be detrimental for a business.
Brand reputation and trust
A brand’s credibility and reputation is just as important as the products and services it provides. Should fraud reach customers, trust begins to erode. Businesses that fail to protect their customer’s personal and financial data or prevent fraud are at risk from facing long-term damage to their brand and even go under regulation scrutiny.
Operational disruption and strategic growth
Fraud has been known to affect areas of the business-like internal controls, onboarding processes, payment flows and supply chains. This can hinder strategic growth and potential investment, which in turn impacts the business’s potential for longevity.
Insider-driven risk
Data theft, sabotage, intellectual property threat and access abuse by insiders can have devastating impacts on a business and should be taken seriously. Companies need to look inwards as well as externally when it comes to protecting themselves.
In 2025 businesses have faced another year of fraud fighting and fraud risks and the landscape only just keeps changing. From cyber scams to the rise of synthetic identity fraud, the internal and external fraud threats to a business are vast in numbers. Not only has fraud caused a financial burden to businesses but it also adds to the workload for internal IT teams that are already facing many issues with the growing technological side of running a business.
It’s more important than ever for businesses to stay ahead and be proactive, never treating fraud as an after-the-fact cost but instead a strategic risk. Investing in robust internal controls, monitoring insider behaviour and adapting detection and prevention systems should be part of every business’s plan for the future, creating an ever-evolving line of defence against risk
