What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward:

Y’all, this episode is one of those conversations where I found myself taking notes while we were recording. Matt Janiga from Modern Treasury joined me to talk about hidden fraud infrastructure.

We talk all the time about faster payments, one API, better vendor tooling, AI agents, global money movement, and payment modernization. But underneath all of that is a much more complicated reality. There are payment rails, reversibility rules, KYC requirements, digital fingerprints, transaction monitoring decisions, consortium data, fraud operations workflows, and infrastructure choices that determine what fraud teams can actually see and stop.

And here is the thing: fraud does not live in silos, and neither does the infrastructure that moves money.

Matt has worked across regulation, fintech infrastructure, compliance, payments, and risk, with experience touching Dodd-Frank, Square, Stripe, Lithic, and now Modern Treasury. So this conversation gives us a really practical look at how the industry moved from the pre-vendor world, where teams were basically building fraud and compliance tools from scratch, into a world where specialized partners, orchestration layers, and agentic AI are changing what fraud teams can do.

For my credit union and community bank folks especially, this matters because you do not have to build everything alone anymore. A rising tide lifts all boats, and the more we understand the hidden fraud infrastructure behind modern payments, the better we can ask questions, pressure test controls, and protect the people we serve.

• How Dodd-Frank and post-crisis regulation helped shape the fintech ecosystem we know today
• Why banks stepping away from certain customer needs opened the door for fintech growth
• What the pre-vendor world looked like for fraud and compliance teams building tools from scratch
• Why fraud vendor infrastructure, orchestration layers, and fraud consortium data changed the way teams manage risk
• What fraud teams miss when they hear “one API” and assume payment infrastructure is simple
• How payment rail reversibility, ACH fraud, Reg E fraud, and tokenized credentials create hidden operational risk
• Why global USD accounts and global money movement require strong digital fingerprinting and risk-based controls
• How agentic AI fraud tools may reshape investigations, fraud operations, and human review over the next five years
• Why the “front door” is one of the most important places to invest when building a fraud program

• Work in fraud operations, payments, fintech, banking, risk, or compliance
• Want to better understand the hidden fraud infrastructure behind modern payments infrastructure
• Are evaluating fraud tooling, fraud vendor infrastructure, or payment orchestration partners
• Need a clearer view of payment rail reversibility, ACH reversibility, Reg E fraud, or global money movement risk
• Are thinking about agentic AI fraud, AI fraud agents, digital fingerprinting, and where humans should remain in the loop

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward.

In this episode, I am sitting down with Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the criminal investigations group for the United States Postal Inspection Service, to talk about something I think way too many fraud teams overlook: USPIS financial crime.

When financial crime escalates, most of us immediately think FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security, or local law enforcement. And listen, those partners matter. But the Postal Inspection Service is one of the most powerful investigative partners in financial crime investigations, especially when mail theft, check fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, identity theft, money laundering, or organized fraud networks are part of the picture.

This conversation is about more than stolen mail or missing packages. It is about how physical infrastructure still connects to modern financial institution fraud, how fraud teams can build stronger law enforcement partnerships, and why collaboration has to happen before the big case hits your desk.

Because behind every fraud case is a real person. A member. A customer. A family. A business. Someone whose trust, dignity, and financial stability may have been shaken in a way they will never forget.

And we, fraud fighters, have a responsibility to do something about that.

• A practical breakdown of how USPIS financial crime investigations work
• Why the United States Postal Inspection Service matters to banks, credit unions, fintechs, and payments companies
• How mail theft connects to check fraud, mail fraud, identity theft, bank fraud, and money laundering
• Why physical mail still matters, even in a digital fraud environment
• How organized fraud networks use stolen mail, altered checks, social media, and other channels to scale financial crime
• What makes a strong fraud referral to law enforcement
• Why relationship building matters before major fraud investigations happen
• How IAFCI and other industry networks help financial crime investigators connect the dots
• Why criminals are using social media, Telegram, and other platforms to organize fraud activity
• How AI and agentic AI are changing the future of financial crime investigations
• Why human oversight still matters when we use technology to fight fraud

• Fraud fighters at banks and credit unions
• Community bank and credit union leaders
• BSA, AML, fraud, and compliance teams
• Fintech and payments risk teams
• Financial crime investigators
• Frontline teams who see suspicious activity before anyone else does
• Law enforcement partners working fraud investigations and financial crime cases
• Risk leaders trying to improve referral and escalation processes
• Anyone responsible for fraud prevention, investigation, intelligence sharing, or victim support

This episode is for the teams who are trying to protect people in the middle of a fraud landscape that is moving fast.

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward.

I recorded this live from Safeguard’s AI Deep Dive Retreat at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and y’all, let me tell you something: this was not just another room full of AI buzzwords. This was fraud leaders, payment experts, financial institution professionals, fintech voices, marketplace operators, and risk leaders all sitting in the same place asking one very real question.

What happens to fraud prevention when artificial intelligence changes everything?

The future of AI fraud is not some far-off thing we are all fixin’ to deal with later. It is already here. We are seeing AI change the speed, scale, and complexity of fraud operations right now. We are seeing it show up in synthetic identity fraud, AI scams, AI identity verification, agentic AI fraud, fraud detection automation, governance conversations, and the pressure fraud teams are already carrying every single day.

But this episode is not about panic.

It is about realism.

It is about what fraud fighters are seeing, what institutions are building, where the gaps still are, and how we keep humans at the center while fraud keeps accelerating around us.

• A practical conversation about the future of AI fraud and what it means for fraud operations
• How AI fraud prevention is changing across banking, credit unions, fintech, payments, marketplaces, and risk teams
• Why synthetic identity fraud, AI scams, and identity fraud prevention are becoming major areas of concern
• How AI in fraud prevention can help investigators analyze data, identify patterns, and reduce noise
• Why AI governance in fraud prevention cannot be treated as something we clean up later
• How agentic AI fraud, know your agent, and KYA fraud prevention are becoming part of the next conversation
• Why human-in-the-loop fraud detection still matters, even when fraud analyst AI tools are getting better
• How fraud fighters and AI can work together without replacing the people who know this work best
• A reminder that responsible AI risk management has to include governance, empathy, collaboration, and practical controls

• Financial institution leaders and fraud professionals
• Risk, compliance, and cybersecurity teams
• Fraud operations teams and investigators
• Credit union and community bank leaders
• Banking fraud prevention teams
• Credit union fraud prevention teams
• Fintech, payments, and marketplace risk teams
• BSA, AML, KYC, and identity teams
• Regulators and policy advisors
• Industry advocates and victim support professionals
• Media professionals covering scams, fraud, AI, and financial crime
• Anyone trying to understand how AI-driven fraud affects real people, real institutions, and real fraud teams

This conversation is for the fraud fighters who are not just trying to check a compliance box. It is for the teams trying to protect members, customers, and communities while also figuring out how to use AI-powered fraud prevention without creating new risk.

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

This conversation is one I think a lot of us need right now.

Financial services are moving fast. Fintech innovations, AI in financial services, real-time payments, embedded finance, digital assets, and payment systems modernization are all changing how institutions serve members and customers.

And let me just assure you, fraud fighters are not anti-innovation.

We are not the department of no. We are the people who know what happens when fintech innovation moves faster than controls, when fintech compliance is treated like a checklist, and when fraud risk management gets discussed only after something has already gone wrong.

In this episode, I sit down with Nyla Cortes to talk through what fintech innovations really mean for credit unions, community banks, fraud teams, BSA officers, compliance leaders, and frontline staff trying to protect people in real time.

Because behind every fraud case is a customer. A member. A family. Someone whose trust, dignity, and financial stability may be permanently affected.

That is why this conversation matters.

• A practical look at how fintech innovations are changing fraud risk inside financial institutions
• Why modernization creates opportunity, but also expands the attack surface
• What AI governance in financial services needs to look like before something goes wrong
• How AI in financial services can support fraud prevention strategies when governance is built in
• Why real-time payments require real-time fraud operations
• How fintech partnerships and third-party risk management can introduce hidden exposure
• Why fintech risk management has to include fraud, compliance, BSA, AML, operations, and frontline teams
• What community bank fintech adoption looks like when resources are already stretched
• Why operational readiness matters before losses show up on a report
• How we can support fintech fraud prevention without forgetting the people impacted by crime

This is not a political conversation. It is not a vendor pitch. It is a practical, honest conversation about what it takes to modernize responsibly.

This episode is for the fraud fighters doing the work every day.

• Fraud directors and fraud analysts
• BSA and AML officers
• Risk and compliance leaders
• Community bank and credit union teams
• Frontline tellers and member service representatives
• Vendor risk and fintech partnership teams
• Cybersecurity and payments professionals
• Regulators and policy advisors
• Anyone trying to balance fintech innovation, fraud prevention strategies, consumer protection, and operational reality

If you are sitting inside a smaller institution thinking, “Holy moly, we are being asked to move faster, but we do not have the same resources as the big banks,” I want you to hear me.

You are not behind because you are doing something wrong. You are operating in an environment where fintech innovations are accelerating faster than the resources available to manage the risk.

And that means we have to get very intentional.

Show Notes:

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/05/integrating-financial-technology-innovation-into-regulatory-frameworks/
• https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-integrates-financial-technology-innovation-into-regulatory-frameworks/
• https://www.sardine.ai/whitepapers/the-agentic-ai-oversight-framework

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

I want to take a moment and talk about something bigger than one scam trend, one crypto headline, or one fraud typology. We are talking about fraud as infrastructure.

Because what we are seeing right now is not isolated activity. Organized fraud networks are operating like coordinated systems, connecting pig butchering scams, social engineering scams, mule accounts, crypto money laundering, fraud and AML gaps, and national security and financial crime concerns.

And y’all, this matters because behind every case is a real person. Someone’s retirement. Someone’s trust. Someone’s financial stability. Someone who was manipulated by a criminal network long before the money ever moved.

• Why fraud as infrastructure changes how we need to think about financial crime
• How organized fraud networks are using scam infrastructure, mule accounts, and crypto money laundering
• Why pig butchering scams and social engineering scams are not simple one-off cases
• Where financial institutions are making progress in fraud prevention and scam prevention
• Why fraud investigations need stronger collaboration across fraud, AML, cybercrime, and law enforcement
• How public-private partnerships can help close the gaps criminals are exploiting
• What fraud fighters can take back to their teams as organized fraud becomes more connected

• Financial institution leaders and fraud professionals
• Risk, compliance, fraud and AML, and cybersecurity teams
• BSA officers and fraud investigators
• Regulators and policy advisors
• Public-private partnership leaders
• Victim support and advocacy professionals
• Anyone trying to understand how organized fraud impacts real people

Fraud does not live in silos, and neither should our solutions.

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

I wanted to do something different for our 100th episode. I didn’t want a victory lap. I wanted an honest conversation about payment fraud prevention, where our systems feel fragile, and whether we are building financial infrastructure worthy of public trust.

I brought together Karisse Hendrick, Becky Reed, David Maimon, and Jeff Taylor to talk about what fraud fighters are seeing across banking, payments, e-commerce, digital assets, and fraud research. Fraud is moving fast. Payments are moving faster. AI fraud detection and AI fraud prevention are becoming more important every day. Institutions are trying to balance innovation, regulation, speed, and protection all at once.

This conversation is not just about payment fraud detection or payment risk management. Behind every account takeover fraud event, business email compromise attack, wire fraud case, ACH fraud prevention gap, or social engineering fraud scheme is a real person, a real business, and a real loss of trust.

• How faster payments are changing real-time payment fraud prevention
• Why payment fraud detection must move beyond isolated incidents
• How AI fraud prevention, AI fraud detection, behavioral biometrics, and device intelligence are changing fraud strategy
• Why business email compromise, check fraud, wire fraud prevention, ACH fraud prevention, and account takeover fraud remain major concerns
• How digital payment fraud is evolving across banks, merchants, marketplaces, and digital asset rails
• Why social engineering fraud continues to exploit trust, emotion, and human behavior
• What collaboration, fraud education, and payment risk management need to look like moving forward

• Fraud fighters across banking, fintech, payments, and e-commerce
• Financial institution leaders and fraud professionals
• Risk, compliance, cybersecurity, and payment operations teams
• Teams focused on real-time payment fraud prevention
• Professionals working on ACH fraud prevention, wire fraud prevention, and account takeover fraud
• Leaders evaluating AI fraud prevention, behavioral biometrics, device intelligence, and fraud orchestration
• Anyone who cares about protecting trust in financial services

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

In part one, you heard fraud fighters describe the current state of fraud with words like acceleration, chaos, fractured, and explosive. And honestly, none of those felt exaggerated. But in this episode, I wanted to ask a different question. Not just what fraud feels like right now, but what teams are doing that they are actually proud of.

And that is where the conversation shifted.

Instead of only hearing about pressure and burnout, I started hearing about collaboration, communication, empathy, innovation, and people who are trying to figure this out together in real time. That is what stood out to me most at Fraud Fight Club this year. Not just the tools. Not just the AI in fraud prevention conversations. Not even just the tactics. The people.

This episode is really about the future of fraud operations. And if there is one thing that came through loud and clear, it is this: we cannot fight this alone anymore.

• Why fraud prevention in banking is becoming more collaborative
• How fraud and AML collaboration is helping teams see more of the full picture
• Why 314(b) information sharing matters in today’s fraud environment
• How fraud prevention strategy is shifting from reactive detection to proactive prevention
• Why human-centered fraud prevention and empathy in fraud investigations still matter
• How fraud prevention technology and fraud analytics are changing the way teams work
• What fraud prevention professionals are doing right now to build stronger networks

• You work in banking fraud detection or fraud risk management
• You are trying to improve fraud decisioning inside your institution
• You care about real-time fraud prevention and operational response
• You want to understand where credit union fraud prevention is headingYou believe collaboration is no longer optional in fraud operations

If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps with getting the word out.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

I asked a room full of fraud professionals one question: describe the current state of fraud in one word.

And the answers? Acceleration. Chaos. Explosive. Scary. Unmanageable.

No one said stable. No one said under control.

So in this episode, I’m breaking down what those answers tell us about evolving fraud trends, the current fraud landscape, and the pressure fraud teams are feeling across banking, financial services, and every channel where fraud is moving faster than our systems were built to handle.

This isn’t just about the latest fraud trends. This is about fraud attack evolution, AI-driven fraud attacks, organized fraud trends, and the operational reality of trying to protect real people in real time.

• A structured breakdown of evolving fraud trends from fraud professionals on the front lines
• A look at the latest fraud trends shaping banking, payments, and financial services
• Insight into how AI-driven fraud attacks and automation are accelerating scam operations
• Discussion of cross-channel fraud trends, from impersonation scams to social engineering fraud trends
• A focused look at fraud operations trends and why teams feel more reactive than proactive
• Practical fraud prevention strategy insights for adapting to faster, more coordinated attacks
• A call for stronger collaboration, benchmarking, and shared intelligence across the fraud ecosystem

This is one of those episodes where we move from what fraud feels like to what we actually need to do about it.

• Financial institution leaders and fraud professionals
• Risk, compliance, and cybersecurity teams
• Fraud operations, payments, and product leaders
• Banking and credit union teams tracking fraud trends in financial services
• Industry advocates and fraud community members
• Anyone trying to understand modern fraud trends and how fast they are changing

If you’re in this space and you’ve felt that pressure, this episode is for you. Because we’re all dealing with it.

Links:

FI Benchmarking Survey Link: https://form.typeform.com/to/WqJf9uqb