Consumer scam controls webinar to examine bank responses to evolving fraud

A consumer scam controls webinar hosted by Finextra in association with Outseer is scheduled online for 7 October 2026, at 15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST and 10:00 EDT. The session is set to examine consumer expectations of banks, interventions at different stages of a scam and research spanning more than 15 markets, according to Finextra.

The event listing does not name participating banks, report deployments by individual institutions or provide results for particular controls. It presents the discussion as a forward-looking examination of which safeguards may work across financial institutions.

That distinction matters as banks, payment providers, telecoms and online platforms face scams that move across several channels. CGAP said in a May 2026 working paper that social media, generative AI, organised criminal networks, rapid-payment adoption and wider use of consumer data are among the forces increasing the complexity of digital-finance fraud.

How do consumer scam controls work?

Effective controls can be arranged around the point at which they interrupt an attack. Before a customer engages, providers and authorities can seek to identify and remove fraudulent advertising and scam messages, while telecom security measures can limit abuse of communications networks. Those steps sit outside a bank’s direct payment process and require coordination across sectors, CGAP said.

At the account and payment stage, CGAP identifies stronger user authentication, behavioural biometrics and transaction-pattern analysis as possible defences. Behavioural systems assess real-time signals such as how a user types, swipes and transacts to identify anomalous activity, according to the paper. Payment providers may also introduce so-called positive friction: deliberate checks or pauses designed to give a customer time to reassess a risky transfer.

Rapid payment systems make funds available within seconds, which can heighten the value of checks before a payment is submitted. Real-time payments operate continuously and provide immediate confirmation, making accurate payment details and approvals particularly relevant.

After a loss, CGAP includes fund recovery among its eight categories of responses, saying clear liability arrangements and cross-border coordination can help return stolen money. It also identifies consumer campaigns built around simple, repeatable actions rather than broad awareness messages.

What will the webinar cover?

Finextra says the October session will consider the scam chain from the period before an attack through consumer compromise, the transaction, receipt of funds and the period after the attack. The listing says scams increasingly target human vulnerability, raising the question of how technical safeguards and behavioural approaches can work together.

Outseer separately promotes a whitepaper that it says contains more than 70 controls, including payment limits, transaction holds, contextual warnings, risk scoring, kill switches and money locks. These are vendor claims on a promotional page; the material does not provide methodology or independently verifiable performance data for those measures.

CGAP cautions that fraud controls involve trade-offs. Many depend on consumer data and can raise privacy concerns; aggressive measures may exclude some users; collaboration between competitors can be difficult; and AI-based systems require investment in capacity, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies. Its conclusion is that financial institutions need cross-sector and cross-border cooperation with authorities and other participants, rather than action by banks alone.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.