Scams Dominate Consumer Payment Fraud
Visa’s Spring 2026 Biannual Threats Report highlights a significant rise in AI-enabled social engineering scams as network-level payment security strengthens worldwide.
The report reveals that from July to December 2025, nearly $1 billion in scam-related activity was identified, making scams the largest category of consumer payment fraud. These scams differ from traditional methods as they exploit human trust rather than requiring technology breaches.
Paul Fabara, Chief Risk and Client Services Officer at Visa, stated, “Payments at a network level continue to get safer, but threats are evolving faster than ever. Criminals are increasingly targeting people rather than technology, using deception, urgency and AI-enabled tools to exploit trust.”
Four major trends are reshaping global payment security. Firstly, fraud is migrating; device token fraud dropped by 9.6% in the second half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Secondly, scams now pose the most significant threat to consumers as criminals focus more on social engineering than system breaches.
AI is altering fraud dynamics, allowing criminals to create more convincing scams, while defenders are using it for early attack detection. Meanwhile, global ransomware activity rose by 26% during the same period, although only 23% of victims paid ransoms, the lowest rate on record.
Michael Jabbara, SVP of Payment Ecosystem Risk and Control at Visa, noted, “The rapid adoption of AI has fundamentally lowered the barrier to entry for fraud. What once required deep technical skill can now be executed with a prompt.”
Visa’s report emphasises the need for continuous innovation and collaboration across banks, merchants, and policymakers to counter these evolving threats effectively. Strengthening network-level security must adapt to the fast-paced changes in fraud tactics.
The full report, detailing these trends and more, is available on Visa’s website. This ongoing analysis is crucial for staying ahead of evolving threats in the payment landscape.
