Payment fraud management: How businesses can stay one step ahead

Faster rails, richer data and borderless commerce have unlocked unprecedented opportunities. Yet every innovation also opens new doors for fraudsters. In 2024, UK Finance reported £1 billion lost to authorised and unauthorised fraud. To stay ahead, organisations need a living, breathing fraud-management programme—one that anticipates threats, aligns with regulation, and measures its own success.

In this article, we explore what effective payment fraud management looks like in 2025, and how businesses can move beyond reactive strategies to build smarter, more resilient payment systems.

Understanding the threat: What payment fraud really looks like

Fraud isn’t just the occasional dodgy email or a lost credit card. It’s evolved. It’s systemic. And it’s often orchestrated by highly organised, well-resourced networks.

Some of the most common—and damaging—forms of payment fraud include:

• Account takeover (ATO): Cybercriminals use stolen credentials to access legitimate customer accounts, often slipping under the radar by mimicking user behaviour.
  
  
• Business email compromise (BEC): Impersonating executives or suppliers, fraudsters trick employees into transferring funds or revealing sensitive payment information.
  
  
• Authorised push payment fraud (APP): Victims are deceived into willingly sending money to fraudulent accounts.
  
  
• Card-not-present fraud: In ecommerce, stolen card details are exploited for unauthorised purchases—often going unnoticed until the damage is done.
  
  

It’s not just about catching the obvious red flags. Modern fraud is subtle. Deceptive. And increasingly powered by AI-driven tactics that adapt in real time.

Regulatory and standards compliance: Requirements and 2025 milestones

Regulators across the EU and global standards bodies are turning compliance requirements into de facto security controls. Your fraud-management framework must therefore double as a compliance engine, generating the evidence auditors and regulators demand.

Why transaction monitoring is non-negotiable

Imagine running a business where you can only spot problems after they’ve caused harm. That’s what operating without robust transaction monitoring is like. By the time a fraudulent payment is flagged, the money’s long gone—and so is your customer’s trust.

That’s where real-time transaction monitoring tools come in. Instead of playing catch-up, businesses can proactively scan every transaction for suspicious patterns—across volumes too vast for any human team to manage alone.

But effective monitoring doesn’t just mean flagging anomalies. It means contextual intelligence. For instance, is a user suddenly making high-value transfers from a new device, at an unusual hour, in a different country? That’s not just odd—it’s a red flag.

With layered behavioural analytics and AI-driven models, businesses can:

• Identify fraud faster
• Minimise false positives (and the friction they cause)
• Comply with evolving regulatory requirements
• Reduce operational costs linked to manual reviews

The building blocks of a strong fraud management strategy

You don’t build fraud resilience overnight. It’s not just about plugging in a tool or adding a CAPTCHA. It’s a mindset—an evolving framework that adapts as threats evolve.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

1. Data-driven decision-making

Fraud prevention should be anchored in real data. Historical transaction patterns, device fingerprints, geolocation, behavioural biometrics—these data points feed machine learning models to identify risk in real time.

2. Layered security

No single defence is foolproof. That’s why modern fraud management stacks multiple security layers—like multi-factor authentication, device recognition, and anomaly detection—to create a net that’s harder to slip through.

3. Human + machine collaboration

AI is powerful, but human intuition still matters. The best fraud prevention systems blend automated detection with expert oversight. That way, alerts are contextualised, false positives are minimised, and investigations are faster.

4. Continuous learning and adaptation

Fraud tactics change fast. Your strategy needs to evolve just as quickly. That means feeding systems with updated threat intelligence, fine-tuning risk thresholds, and regularly reviewing your policies.

Edenred Payment Solutions: Protecting payment ecosystems with confidence

At the centre of it all? Trust. For customers, partners, and regulators alike.

That’s where Edenred Payment Solutions stands apart.

By embedding advanced fraud prevention measures directly into its card and account payment services, Edenred Payment Solutions helps businesses do more than just manage fraud—they actively outpace it. From robust transaction monitoring to integrated compliance safeguards, every layer of the payment infrastructure is designed with business payment security in mind.

If you're handling high-volume transactions in a heavily regulated industry, Edenred Payment Solutions provides the foundation for secure, compliant, and future-ready payment ecosystems.

In a landscape where fraud is inevitable, preparation isn’t optional. It’s strategic. And with the right partner, it can be seamless too.

Final thoughts

There’s no silver bullet for payment fraud. But there are smarter strategies. And there are tools that can turn fraud management from a defensive posture into a competitive advantage.

By embracing real-time monitoring, layered protections, and adaptive strategies, businesses can stop playing catch-up and start setting the pace.

Because when it comes to fraud, staying one step ahead makes all the difference.

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