Europe faces unique fraud threats
AI is driving new fraud vectors globally, including investment fraud, deepfakes, synthetic identities and account takeover (ATO) attacks. Some reports suggest these fraud threats are increasing by several hundred percent year on year.
“Across Europe, there’s a higher prevalence of investment/romance scams and mule account networks exploiting instant payments than in the US.”
However, fraud patterns vary significantly across regions and banking markets. Europol reports that online fraud schemes are expanding rapidly across Europe, while UK Finance identifies mobile fraud and Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud as the leading threats in the UK. Remote scams linked to mobile devices increased by 11% last year in Britain. Europe also sees a higher prevalence of investment scams, romance scams and mule account networks exploiting instant payments than the US, where instant payments and Open Banking adoption remain less mature.
Europe’s payment infrastructure creates different fraud risks
The introduction of SEPA Instant Payments (SEPA Inst) has increased cross-border transaction activity across Europe, creating new opportunities for fraudsters to exploit regulatory differences between EU and non-EU states. Europe is also experiencing growing use of deepfakes and synthetic identities designed specifically for European banking apps and Open Banking ecosystems.
While SEPA Inst improves payment speed and customer experience, it also creates an extremely small window for fraud detection and intervention – often only seconds before funds become irreversible. By comparison, the US still relies heavily on slower payment systems such as ACH, which can take one to three days, while newer real-time services like FedNow are not yet widely dominant.
“Adapting US-centric fraud detection and management systems for Europe’s more modern payment rails can lead to gaps.”
Fraud detection systems designed primarily for US payment infrastructure can create gaps when applied to Europe’s faster and more interconnected payment environment. European banks may find that adapted US systems generate excessive false positives, increase operational costs and struggle to detect real-time threats such as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where victims are manipulated into approving transactions themselves.
Many US-focused fraud systems prioritise card-not-present (CNP) fraud and traditional wire fraud checks over Europe-specific threats such as IBAN-based scams and Open Banking fraud. Fraud prevention solutions designed for Europe can better support SEPA payment schemes, local-language fraud patterns and pan-European intelligence sharing.
Tieto Banktech delivers fraud prevention built for Europe
Tieto Banktech brings more than 25 years of experience helping European banks prevent fraud across over 14 markets. Our fraud prevention solutions are designed around European payment infrastructure, including SEPA Inst, PSD2 and Open Banking, as well as local fraud patterns across European markets. Tieto Banktech’s Financial Crime Prevention solutions have consistently delivered fraud detection rates above 95% while monitoring billions of transactions annually across a network of more than 130 European banks.
“We’re building an ecosystem capable of handling real-time European transaction flows while consistently delivering fraud detection rates above 95% over decades of operation.”
Tieto Banktech provides end-to-end financial crime prevention across the entire customer journey – from KYC and AML onboarding controls to real-time transaction monitoring, sanctions and PEP screening, and fraud case management ready for regulatory reporting.
Tieto Banktech’s shared intelligence network uses a multi-tenant platform and anonymised feedback loops to identify cross-institutional fraud patterns – such as mule account networks – that individual banks may struggle to detect alone. By combining expert-led AI with the upcoming Atlas Large Financial Model, Tieto Banktech is building fraud prevention capable of supporting real-time European transaction flows at scale.
Tieto Banktech offers flexible delivery models including modular SaaS, fully managed Fraud Defence Centre (BPO) services and hybrid operating models. This allows banks to outsource part or all of fraud and AML operations while reducing costs by 25–60% and maintaining operational control.
