Fraud is evolving faster than ever. New technologies, shifting user behavior, and increasingly sophisticated attacks are changing how organizations need to think about risk.
What used to be a back-office problem is now a front-line business priority.
Mitek’s 2026 “25 Women to Watch in Fraud Prevention” recognizes the leaders pushing the industry forward. These are the people asking better questions and building smarter answers. They are thinking deeply about what comes next, from emerging fraud threats to the role of AI, and how identity can move beyond compliance to become a real driver of growth and trust.
They are also rethinking authentication in a practical way. Not just how to stop fraud, but how to do it without slowing down good customers or adding unnecessary friction.
Across industries, these women are helping organizations build systems that are more intelligent, more resilient, and more human. Because in today’s world, trust is not a feature. It is the foundation.
We asked these leaders to weigh in on the trends, challenges, and innovations shaping the future of fraud prevention:
- On identity as a growth driver: How should organizations think about identity verification as a strategic investment, not just a compliance requirement, to drive revenue growth, reduce fraud losses, and strengthen customer trust?
- On what’s shaping fraud next: Fraud is constantly evolving — what emerging threat, technology, or market shift do you believe will most significantly shape the future of digital fraud prevention?
- On the future of authentication: As fraud tactics become more sophisticated, how should organizations rethink their authentication strategy to create a competitive advantage while balancing security, customer experience, and operational efficiency?
Siobhan Arnold 
Senior Fraud Risk Manager
On identity as a growth driver:
Our job is to forge close relationships with our business partners, and engage them in the design of an effective ID&V strategy. As your business grows, your ID&V strategy must adapt as new products, credit scorecards or shifts in target consumers, all bring their own unique potential risks. The more agile the strategy and controls are, the less customer friction and the business will understand that a decline has been for a good reason and not labelled as overly risk-adverse. Other benefits, such as improvements in portfolio performance and customer trust scores, should eventually prove that collaboration is key and Fraud should not be working in isolation.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
The weaponization of AI by criminals is enabling them to grow and commercialize their operations significantly at a lower cost, allowing them to provide fraud-as-a-service to larger organized gangs. Fraud-as-a-service marketplaces provide the tools needed to complete tasks at scale, such as creating synthetic identities and associated ID documents. Gangs can now reach a much wider target base with less human intervention and cost, and companies will need to be equally innovative in their use of AI in digital fraud prevention.
Karen Boyer
SVP, Financial Crimes & Fraud Intelligence
On identity as a growth driver:
Agentic AI and the Future of Fraud Risk: The rapid rise of Agentic AI agents now capable of autonomously transacting, shopping, opening accounts, aggregating data, etc.. marks a fundamental shift in digital engagement. These systems remove human intervention from critical processes, creating new blind spots for traditional fraud detection technologies. Legacy models, built to monitor human-driven behaviors, must now adapt to identify autonomous patterns which historically fit classic fraudulent payment blueprints. It may pose a challenge for historical models to understand this activity may now be what the “new normal” looks like regarding customer behavior. This evolution demands a rethinking of detection frameworks to account for dynamic, goal-driven agents operating across multiple platforms in real time.
This evolution paves the way for a new wave of first-party fraud, where dispute abusers can conveniently “blame the AI,” claiming that an autonomous agent acted without their consent. This narrative of ‘the agent went rogue” creates a plausible cover for fraudulent chargebacks and unauthorized activity. While legitimate customers may occasionally face similar risks, fraudsters will exploit this loophole aggressively and at scale, leveraging ambiguity to undermine accountability and detection frameworks.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Identity verification and fraud prevention have long been underrated sales tools. At its core, every enterprise is driven by profitability, which is achieved through two primary levers: reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Fraud teams have traditionally focused on loss reduction, which unquestionably protects the bottom line, but the overlooked opportunity lies in how fraud prevention can actively enhance customer experience and drive growth.
When a customer experiences fraud, the institution’s response becomes a defining moment. The actions taken by the financial institution often determine whether that customer remains loyal or chooses to leave. Even more powerful is the opportunity to detect and stop fraud before the customer is aware. Few moments build trust more effectively than demonstrating proactive protection, and there is little that strengthens a bank’s brand faster than proving it can safeguard customers without burdening them. Consistently positive fraud experiences build customer satisfaction, which organically translates into trust. That trust deepens existing relationships, increases product adoption, and when leveraged intentionally, becomes a compelling sales differentiator. In this way, fraud prevention and identity verification move beyond defensive controls and become strategic assets that protect revenue, strengthen loyalty, and attract new customers through reputation and confidence.
Lastly when the enterprise feels confident with their IDV tools, the throughput of relationships becomes a quality investment. Once the confidence grows that those onboarding are legitimate and valuable relationships, more products, higher limits, and reward programs can be implemented to enhance the customer experience even farther.
Riddhi Cochran
Strategic Execution Director — Branch Systems & Transformation
On identity as a growth driver:
The biggest shift is that fraud is no longer just stealing identity — it’s manufacturing it. Deepfakes, synthetic identities, and injection attacks are turning identity into a scalable weapon. The institutions that win won’t rely on one-time checks; they’ll build continuous, risk-based identity assurance that adapts as fast as fraud evolves. In the future, trust won’t be declared once — it will have to be proven continuously.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Identity verification should be seen as trust infrastructure, not just a compliance control. Done well, it prevents loss, improves decisions, reduces friction, and gives customers the confidence to do more with you. In a world where trust is fragile and fraud is rising, strong identity is no longer a back-office requirement — it is a growth engine, a loyalty driver, and a competitive edge.
On the future of authentication:
Authentication has to move from fragmented controls to intelligent orchestration. The goal is not more friction — it’s more precision: phishing-resistant methods, risk-based step-up, and seamless experiences for trusted customers. The winners will be the organizations that make security so smart and so intuitive that customers feel confidence, not complexity.
Claudia Colijn
Expert Lead, KYC Onboarding
On identity as a growth driver:
In my role as Lead KYC Onboarding, I see the most significant shift in fraud prevention happening around identity — and the growing realization that the traditional model no longer scales. Fraud and AML are converging in to one identity-centric risk domain, where synthetic identities, network abuse and cross-channel misuse exploit onboarding flows. At the same time, it will become increasingly ineffective for banks to independently establish identity based solely on information provided by the customer. We need to move toward trusted, external identity sources — with explicit customer consent — that provide verified identity data once and can be safely reused across institutions.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
From my perspective from KYC onboarding, identity verification is a strategic investment in trust and efficiency — not a compliance hurdle. Banks should stop treating identity as something they repeatedly reconstruct themselves, and instead invest in access to reliable, authoritative identity sources that customers can consent to share. This shift reduces duplication, lowers operational cost, improves conversion, and creates a far better customer experience. Strong identity foundations at the front door don’t slow growth — they enable sustainable, scalable growth.
On the future of authentication:
I believe organizations need to rethink authentication as a dynamic, trust-based capability rather than a static control. Competitive advantage will come from combining adaptive authentication with trusted identity data sourced from reliable providers, instead of repeatedly asking customers to prove who they are. When identity is already established through a trusted source — with customer approval — organizations can apply friction only where risk truly requires it. This balances security, customer experience, and operational efficiency, and prevents unnecessary manual intervention.
Laura Cristescu
Senior Manager, Digital Identity Product
On identity as a growth driver:
The most significant emerging threat shaping digital fraud prevention is generative AI-powered deepfakes and synthetic identity fraud.
We see deepfake sophistication, where advances in generative AI (e.g., GPT-4, Stable Diffusion) enable hyper-realistic fake audio, video, and text. Criminals use these to impersonate executives (CEO fraud), manipulate biometric authentication, or create synthetic identities.
In terms of synthetic identity fraud, currently AI generates plausible but non-existent personas by blending real data fragments (e.g., SSNs, addresses). These "Frankenstein identities" bypass traditional KYC checks and are harder to detect than stolen identities.
From a financial institution perspective, we see serious impact on several axis:
- Biometric vulnerabilities: Facial/voice recognition systems face increased spoofing risks.
- Detection challenges: Traditional rules-based systems struggle with AI-generated anomalies.
- Social engineering amplification: Deepfakes enhance phishing/vishing success rates.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Organizations should view identity verification as a strategic investment that goes beyond mere compliance, leveraging it to drive revenue growth, reduce fraud losses, and strengthen customer trust.
RBC strives to bring an enhanced user experience for digital identity. We streamlined our processes to reduce friction for onboarding, we have a personalized approach based on our client affinity towards technology, and we are working hard to be consistent across all channels, regardless if our services are accessed online, in branch or via advice centre calling.
We combine technology, with real-time monitoring and we are completely transparent with why we use different verification methods. Trust is one of the most important values for us and, is something that we are constantly budling with our client.
On the future of authentication:
To address sophisticated fraud tactics while balancing security, customer experience (CX), and operational efficiency, we adopt a dynamic, risk-based authentication (RBA) strategy.
We leverage emerging technologies like biometrics with AI-Driven Fraud Detection models. We constantly listen to our clients, measure our performance, and try to stay on top. Needless to say we celebrate when we are not the ones who need to catch up with the fraudsters.
Holly Dapolito
Director of Deposit Operations
On identity as a growth driver:
Fraudsters will continue to outpace banks in adopting new technology because they are unconstrained by regulation, and legacy infrastructure. The real shift banks must make is moving from reactive controls to adaptive, this race isn’t about deploying more tools; it’s about integrating technology, data, and decisioning so fraud prevention becomes proactive, scalable, and embedded into the customer journey — not bolted on after losses occur.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Shifting from siloed, rulesbased controls to adaptive models that continuously learn across channels, products, and behaviors. Institutions that succeed will treat fraud as an enterprise intelligence problem, not a lineofbusiness issue: investing in realtime data integration, advanced analytics, and teams empowered to act quickly. Just as important, banks must design fraud prevention with the customer in mind — because friction is no longer just an inconvenience, it’s a competitive risk.
Kristen Galloway
SVP Fraud Prevention
On identity as a growth driver:
The biggest shift shaping digital fraud prevention will be AI—on both sides of the battlefield. As fraudsters use AI to scale deception, organizations will need equally intelligent defenses that analyze behavior, context, and risk in real time to stay ahead. The future of fraud prevention will be defined by the race between artificial intelligence and digital trust. As deepfakes and AI-generated identities become more convincing, the future of fraud prevention will depend on technologies that can verify not just data, but authenticity.
On the future of authentication:
The goal of modern authentication isn’t just to keep bad actors out, it’s to recognize good customers instantly. When security becomes invisible for trusted users and formidable for fraudsters, organizations turn authentication into a true competitive advantage. In a world where threats evolve daily, resilience comes from adaptability. Organizations that build identity systems designed to learn, scale, and continuously improve won’t just defend against fraud—they’ll stay one step ahead of it.
Ruchira Gosh
Head of Enterprise Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)
On identity as a growth driver:
The AI arms race is what will drive the future. AI acts both as a threat multiplier and the foundational technology defense and the critical shift needs to happen from reactive, rule based detection to proactive behavioral collaborative prevention with multiple layered defense controls. AI powered deepfakes, voice cloning , industrial scale synthetic identity fraud and Agentic AI are all emerging threats along with changes in geopolitics that will explode nation-state threats.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Embedding identity into the company's core business journeys transforms the customer experience leading to business expansion — competitive advantage, revenue growth, operational benefits/efficiency and fraud prevention. Identity is a strategic high ROI asset that creates long term value for customers along-with risk reduction and regulatory compliance. Customer trust is a critical aspect of business enablement and identity plays a pivotal role to establish trust and strengthen security.
On the future of authentication:
Organizations will need to rethink on opportunities where authentication shifts from static password defenses to phishing resistant, risk aware, passwordless mindset. Modern strategies aligned with zero trust principles of authentication aligned with continuous verification is the path forward. Trust but always verify through-out the entire customer journey is the north star to align towards.
Emily Giordano
Associate Director, Fraud Strategy
On identity as a growth driver:
The most significant shift isn’t just a new type of fraud - it’s the industrialization of deception through generative AI. We are entering an era where “seeing is no longer believing.” Deepfakes, synthetic identities, and automated social engineering are making sophisticated fraud tactics accessible to even low-level bad actors. As a result, defenses can’t rely on static controls; they must evolve into dynamic systems that continuously evaluate trust.
At the same time, technology alone isn’t the silver bullet. Fraud doesn’t respect industry boundaries, which is why the future of prevention depends on stronger collaboration and shared intelligence across organizations. By combining real-time behavioral signals with cross-industry insights, institutions can identify emerging patterns earlier and intercept fraud before it scales.
Because in today’s environment, stopping fraud isn’t just about better technology — it’s about better collaboration.
On the future of authentication:
To stay ahead, organizations must move beyond point-in-time authentication and shift toward continuous trust. Historically, authentication has been treated like a bouncer at the front door. Once a user clears that initial hurdle - often by using static credentials like passwords or one-time passcodes that are increasingly easy for fraudsters to compromise - the system effectively stops asking questions.
The competitive advantage now lies in strategic friction. By leveraging passive signals such as behavioral biometrics, device intelligence, and cross-channel data, organizations can maintain a continuous stream of identity intelligence. This allows them to evaluate trust dynamically throughout the entire customer journey, removing unnecessary friction for legitimate customers while focusing stronger controls only where risk truly exists.
Because in today’s environment, effective authentication isn’t just about verifying identity — it’s about continuously understanding it.
Heather Grover
Vice President, Product Management, Fraud Platform (Global)
On identity as a growth driver:
Agentic AI — not the shift to it, but its scale — is at a critical inflection. As more legitimate customers delegate high-value actions to agents, fraud will increasingly target this layer by manipulating, hijacking, or impersonating agents acting on a human’s behalf.
We’ve spent years building controls around humans: verifying who they are, authenticating them, and monitoring their behavior. But we’re now entering a world where humans are increasingly delegating actions to AI agents, to browse, purchase, negotiate, and transact on their behalf. That fundamentally breaks historical fraud assumptions. For organizations, that shows up as a new kind of risk: more account takeovers via delegated permissions, more ‘legitimate bot’ false positives, and more pressure to approve frictionlessly without opening the door to agent-level abuse.
Fraud models were built on the idea that bots are bad and humans are good. That distinction is disappearing. Some bots are legitimate. Some humans are malicious. And increasingly, the fraud may sit somewhere in between, a compromised agent, a delegated action gone wrong, or a trusted AI being manipulated. That’s why I believe the next frontier of fraud prevention is Know Your Agent (KYA).
It’s no longer enough to verify the human. We need to verify the agent acting on their behalf, bind the two together, credential the agent, and continuously monitor its behavior and entitlements. Fraud prevention has to evolve from point-in-time identity checks to agent-layer trust infrastructure, combining human-to-agent binding, agent registry, and continuous risk monitoring. Fraud will increasingly live at the protocol layer. So trust has to as well.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
I think identity needs to be reframed entirely. For too long, identity verification has been treated as a compliance gate at onboarding, a box to tick before you let someone in. But in a digital, AI-enabled world, identity is reused constantly. It underpins onboarding, authentication, transactions, servicing, and now, agentic interactions.
If identity is weak, everything built on top of it becomes fragile. Fraud increases. False declines rise. Customer friction grows. AI automation becomes risky. Conversely, continuously validating identity over time lets you confidently approve more good customers with less friction and reserve heavy checks for true anomalies. And now we need to go further, from Know Your Customer (KYC) to Know Your Agent (KYA). As consumers delegate actions to AI assistants, organizations need to verify not just who the customer is, but which agent is acting, whether it’s authorized, what it’s allowed to do, and whether that authority is still valid.
On the future of authentication:
Authentication needs to evolve from a static checkpoint to a dynamic trust process. For years, authentication has relied on passwords, one-time codes, and basic MFA layered on top. But in a world of phishing kits, deepfakes, synthetic identities, and increasingly autonomous AI interactions, those controls are no longer enough on their own.
We’re moving toward an environment where actions aren’t always performed directly by a human at a keyboard, they may be initiated by a user but executed through digital assistants, apps, or automated workflows. That means authentication is verifying each user at login, and then continuously assessing context, intent, and risk throughout the entire interaction. Competitive advantage comes from orchestrating signals (device, network, behavior, identity) to adapt friction in real time — optimizing both fraud outcomes and operational cost. The organizations that will stand out are those that can approve legitimate users instantly and invisibly, while dynamically escalating scrutiny when something doesn’t look right. When authentication becomes intelligent and adaptive rather than static and reactive, it stops being a cost center and becomes a true differentiator in digital experience.
Connie James
Senior Risk Manager
On identity as a growth driver:
I believe AI is a two-edged sword. It offers bad actors advantages to mimic legitimate customers and transactions; however, AI and machine learning also equips organizations [financial services or those with sensitive personally identifiable information] with tools to consolidate significantly more data points, detect anomalies and identify suspicious behaviors that represent threats. It can be used across any or all channels used and harnesses invaluable insights when leveraged. Its all about using AI for productive and protective actions, not malicious activity. The key is to distinguish between the them to take action for the betterment and safety of our customers.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Organizations benefit from enhanced identity verification and it should be considered a strategic investment, just like locations or system redundancy. Its the cost of doing business, and knowing with whom you are doing business. Customer trust and revenue growth go hand in hand, when a company knows their customer. By knowing their customer, understanding them and their access or transactional behavior, will reduce fraud, build confidence, and ultimately grow the business. Identity verification moves organizations from treating patrons as a commodity to treating them as a known and valued customer.
On the future of authentication:
Fraud tactics have become more sophisticated, and organizations need to abandon the “one fixes all” approach. In understanding their customer, offer customizable solutions that balance the need for security with the customer experience. Customers will not use solutions that are too difficult to leverage. I was recently assisting an older family member who was trying to safeguard themselves, but the solution was so complicated, that they abandoned the attempt and basically accepted the risk. Security and functionality should not be at odds, but should work together in harmony to ensure the customer feels secure with an easy to use, understandable solution.
Diana Jouard
Group Product Manager
On identity as a growth driver:
We’re at an inflection point with digital, wallet-based identity and verifiable credentials. Instead of service providers repeatedly collecting raw personal data and scattering it across forms, databases, and third parties, we’re moving toward a model where people carry portable, cryptographically verifiable claims in a wallet they control, and where reverification can happen with privacy-preserving biometrics on the user’s own device. That is a huge win for privacy and user experience, but it fundamentally changes how and where we do fraud prevention.
The emphasis shifts from “How much data can I collect about this person?” to “Can I validate this credential as authentic, untampered, and bound to the human and device in front of me?” Trust becomes more distributed, moving closer to the edge: into the wallet, into the device, into on-device biometrics, and into the ecosystem of issuers, holders, and verifiers. Fraudsters will follow that shift. We should fully expect attacks on wallet implementations, issuers, and binding mechanisms, as well as sophisticated synthetic identities backed by good-looking but compromised credentials. As wallet ecosystems become interoperable, trust becomes portable across brands and sectors, and so does fraud. That raises the bar on how well issuers and verifiers coordinate signals, revocation, and recovery when something goes wrong.
The organizations that stay ahead will be the ones that treat wallet-based identity not just as a UX upgrade, but as a new fraud control plane. They will pair verifiable credentials with strong device binding, behavioral analytics, and privacy-preserving biometrics for reverification, so they can quietly recheck “is this still the same person, on the same device?” without hoarding raw biometric data. That combination lets them move beyond the idea that a single “valid” credential means a user is safe forever.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
I think about this through an identity-first lens. For years, many digital experiences have been built on implicit trust: if a user can produce the right static facts, we let them in and more or less treat them as trusted from that point on. Implicit trust says, “You got through the front door once, so I’ll assume you’re fine going forward.” In a world where personal data is widely exposed and easily traded, that assumption no longer holds. Attackers can often assemble a more complete “profile” on your customers than you can.
The new standard is explicit trust. Explicit trust means we deliberately and measurably verify who is behind an interaction, on which device, and at what level of assurance, and we reserve the right to re-evaluate that trust over time. It replaces fuzzy notions like “known customer” with clearer questions: How confident am I in this identity right now, for this action, given everything I see?
When you make that shift, identity verification stops being a cost center and becomes an engine for safe growth and durable customer trust. Strong, explicit verification lets you safely approve more good users in real time, remove friction for already verified customers, and offer higher-value products — like instant decisions or higher limits, without simply absorbing more risk. At the same time, it closes the door on a big class of fraud: account takeovers, synthetic identities, and mule accounts are harder to create and much easier to spot. And when customers see that the level of verification matches the sensitivity of what they are doing, and you can explain it in plain language, it builds long-term confidence instead of feeling like a compliance checkbox.
On the future of authentication:
The core mindset shift is to verify first, before trusting any interaction, and then keep earning that trust continuously. Traditional models tend to front-load authentication: log in once, maybe with a second factor, and then the rest of the session is treated as implicitly safe. That approach ignores the reality that risk changes over time as devices, locations, and behaviors change.
A more modern approach uses risk engines to evaluate each interaction in context, looking not just at obvious signals like IP and geography, but at subtle patterns in navigation, device posture, and how the user normally moves through your flows. You start with strong identity verification and device binding at onboarding or at key points in the customer lifecycle, so you know who you are dealing with. From there, you continuously blend device signals, user behavior, and biometrics to answer a simple question in the background: does this still look like the same person, on the same device, behaving in a way that matches their history?
When those signals are low risk, the experience can be almost invisible, which is where the competitive advantage shows up: customers feel like everything “just works". When risk increases (unusual behavior, a new device, a high-value transaction) you can intelligently step up authentication with stronger factors or a quick re-verification. The result is not a tradeoff between security, experience, and efficiency; it’s a system where better verification and smarter, continuous assessment allow you to improve all three at once. Organizations that get this right turn their authentication experience into a real competitive differentiator.
Becky Kiichle-Gross
Sr. Manager, Product Management
On identity as a growth driver:
One of the biggest shifts I see shaping the future of digital fraud prevention is how we define the source of truth. Historically, humans could visually inspect a document and determine if it was fraudulent, so many fraud systems use agents as the step-up to confirm fraud. But with today’s sophisticated deepfakes, the human eye alone is no longer enough. Instead of removing humans from the process, we can evolve their roles. Agent step-up must shift from inspecting only images to evaluating the full context of the transactions including device signals, how an image was captured, session behavior, short video or audio cues, and other metadata. The future of fraud prevention lies in a layered strategy where technology analyzes signals at scale and humans interpret the patterns. It’s not about asking whether an image looks real anymore, it’s about understanding whether the entire digital interaction proves that it’s live and authentic.
On the future of authentication:
As fraud tactics evolve, authentication can’t just become more complex with more layers, it must become more inclusive. Real competitive advantage will come from systems that balance strong fraud prevention with accessibility and ease of use. For example, with face liveness detection, a passive system with a single image is far more accessible than complicated active challenges, which can create barriers and still be vulnerable to spoofing. We should also be thinking about a future where digital identities replace the physical documents we’ve relied on for decades. Because this will be a new and unfamiliar way for people to prove who they are, these systems must be inclusive and intuitive. If they aren’t, especially for older generations who are increasingly targeted by fraud, they won’t earn the trust and adoption they depend on. The future of authentication must be layered security, but also accessible enough for everyone to safely participate in the digital world.
Yazmin Knowles
On identity as a growth driver:
The biggest shift in digital fraud is the industrialization of attacks through AI. Criminals can now generate synthetic identities, manipulate documents, and scale fraud operations faster than ever. The organizations that will shape the future of digital fraud prevention will move from static controls to continuous, intelligence-led fraud prevention across the entire customer journey, shifting general, reactive fraud mitigation approaches to more proactive, strategy aligned approaches.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Identity verification should be viewed as a growth enabler, not just a compliance control. When done well, it allows organizations to approve more genuine customers with confidence, reduce fraud losses, and build long-term digital trust. In a competitive digital economy, trust is a commercial advantage.
On the future of authentication:
Authentication needs to evolve from one-size-fits-all security to intelligent, risk-based access. By combining behavioral and contextual signals, organizations can strengthen protection while keeping the experience seamless for genuine users. The real advantage comes from protecting customers without slowing them down, and overall having a strong balance between security, experience and efficiency.
Candace Levine
VP of Global Fraud Department
On identity as a growth driver:
The lethal combination of AI-generated identities coupled with the increased demand from consumers for instant payment methods (such as P2P, RTP, and Crypto transfers). With this kind of speed and scalability, I am constantly thinking about how financial institutions are going to be able to keep up in a heavily regulated environment while still being able to meet our clients’ demands for payment options. This impacts not only the fraud space but also the scam environment dramatically as well.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Consumers continue to ask their Financial Institutions for more dynamic treatment in the banking experience, such as payment limits that fit their unique profiles or the profile of the receiver. To be able to deliver dynamic limits and treat each client individually, there needs to be strong identity verification enablers at the time of onboarding and continuous monitoring of the client’s riskiness as they develop their banking relationship. This ability would drive revenue growth and strengthen consumer trust.
On the future of authentication:
Fraud tactics are evolving past the widely accepted methods of authentication today, such as OTP. Organizations will have to start educating clients on evolving to more secure methods of authentication, such as IDV or Passkeys. It can be incredibly difficult to force adoption on new Authentication methods, so the earlier we can all introduce them and the more intuitive we make the experience, the better the adoption will be.
Leigh Ann Lien
Director of Product Management
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Organizations should view identity verification as a growth and risk optimization engine — not just a compliance checkbox. When designed strategically, identity becomes a lever to accelerate revenue through seamless onboarding and higher approval rates, reduce fraud losses through adaptive, risk-based verification, and strengthen customer trust by delivering secure, low-friction experiences.
The real shift is moving from static, point-in-time verification to continuous, data-driven identity intelligence embedded across the entire customer lifecycle. When identity is treated as a strategic capability, it becomes a competitive differentiator — enabling confident growth, not just regulatory adherence.
On the future of authentication:
As fraud grows more advanced, organizations must move beyond one-size-fits-all authentication and adopt a dynamic, risk-based trust model. Instead of relying solely on passwords and blanket MFA, leading organizations use adaptive authentication — applying friction only when real-time risk signals justify it.
Authentication should extend beyond login and become continuous, monitoring behavior and transaction context throughout the customer journey. The goal isn’t more security — it’s smarter security: protecting customers, reducing false positives, lowering operational burden, and creating seamless experiences that build lasting trust.
Emili Moan
SVP, Head of Fraud Enablement & Execution
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Fraud capabilities overall should be viewed as crucial to organizations’ strategies for growing safely while strengthening customer trust. Identity verification is a clear example of how that investment can create value. When implemented well, ID verification introduces the right level of friction, so clients feel confident their money is protected. These tools, when combined with behavioral and transactional data, can be leveraged to make real-time decisions about whether additional step-ups are required. They can also improve operational efficiencies in everyday interactions by enabling a teller to instantly pull up a client’s profile when scanning their ID rather than manually typing in their information. When implemented in a way that is scalable and thoughtful, protections like ID verification become an enabler of growth rather than a barrier to it as clients are willing to deepen relationships knowing their financial lives are protected.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Our clients increasingly expect to manage their entire financial lives through their mobile apps. The technologies that will most significantly shape the future of digital fraud prevention are those that protect clients throughout their entire digital journey. These include:
- Selfie based ID verification and document liveness checks
- Image analytics that detect fraudulent checks inside the mobile deposit flow
- Behavioral biometrics that recognize how our clients naturally use our app and alert us when something is off
- Push notifications that strengthen authentication and reduce reliance on SMS
At the same time, we can’t forget that many of our clients still prefer to conduct their banking within our branches. Protecting those who prefer in person banking remains essential, and we must continue investing in tools that safeguard interactions within all channels without creating gaps that fraudsters can exploit.
Robin Pugh
Founder and CEO
On identity as a growth driver:
We've already seen the impacts of AI and Deepfakes on fraud and scams. AI is continuing to evolve at such a rapid pace that the effectiveness and ease of access will continue to make it a formidable threat across industries. Agentic AI poses one of the highest risks for fraudulent activity, as now lone-wolf fraudsters can deploy an army of fraud agents, allowing them to build identities, create transaction traffic, and moderate activity to avoid detection at levels that typically were reserved for sophisticated organized crime groups. I also believe that these financial crimes by AI-proxy continue to desensitize our collective conscience to criminal activity. We've seen how the explosion of "glitches" on social media has drawn individuals who previously would not have considered participating in criminal activity. Similarly, AI agents will provide an arms-length distance and increased anonymity to the humans behind the fraud.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
Checking the compliance box is no longer good enough. Synthetic identity creation has become so much more efficient and counterfeit identity documents are nearly impossible to detect. Companies must layer in multiple types of verification, like biometric, behavioral, and cross-network signals; and most importantly, we cannot allow our teams to silo their data. Customer support center data, fraud investigations, money laundering investigations and cybersecurity teams all hold valuable signals that, on their own, may not tell the complete story. Integrating these signals into shared data sets and cross-enterprise investigative teams are key for organizations who want to protect their customers and increase revenue.
Stacie Purcell
Fraud Solutions Executive
On identity as a growth driver:
Fraud is constantly evolving — what emerging threat, technology, or market shift do you believe will most significantly shape the future of digital fraud prevention? I’m going to take a slightly different approach to this question. Rather than focusing on what is evolving, I’d highlight what isn’t — and how that ongoing stagnation continues to materially hamper our ability to combat fraud. Specifically, I’m referring to bank regulations and payment guidelines that were enacted decades ago. Fraudsters have become highly adept at exploiting regulatory frameworks designed nearly 40 years in the past. In an era defined by digital banking, mobile image capture, and near-instantaneous payments, we need to take a hard look at what still makes sense in 2026 and where modernization is long overdue. And while we’re at it, perhaps it’s time to take a page from the European playbook and seriously reconsider — if not eliminate — the continued use of checks.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
The days of viewing IDV as a one-time compliance hurdle or ‘check the box’ task are over. Identity confidence needs to be dynamic, risk-based and continuously enforced rather than static and easily exploited. When we think about identity verification as a lifecycle capability versus a one-time event, not only can you better identify fraud, but you can reduce unnecessary friction, build long-term client relationships built on trust and, in the end, drive more revenue.
Sue Ross
Senior Vice President
On identity as a growth driver:
Identity verification should be approached as core trust infrastructure, not a compliance hurdle. When designed strategically, it reduces friction, boosts conversion, and enables organizations to confidently approve more legitimate customers while stopping fraud earlier and at lower cost. Continuous, high confidence identity signals improve fraud and risk decisioning across the lifecycle, cutting losses and operational overhead. Most importantly, a consistent, adaptive identity experience builds lasting customer trust and becomes a powerful driver of sustainable growth.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
A market shift I see that will need to shape the future of digital fraud prevention, and to some degree more broadly, is moving away from just authentication/identity fraud controls such as credentials, devices, etc. to a more intent driven approach for detecting anomalies. Basically a shift of not just “are you the true customer” but to “why would this customer be potentially transacting this way”.
Emily Seeberger
Vice President, Customer Success & Support
On identity as a growth driver:
The biggest shift isn’t just AI-powered fraud. It’s the speed and scale at which fraud operations now run.
What used to take organized fraud rings now takes a laptop and a few AI tools. Synthetic identities, document generation, and account takeover attempts can now be automated and launched in massive volumes.
What I see with customers is that fraud isn’t a static problem anymore. It adapts faster than most fraud controls.
That means fraud prevention has to move from point-in-time verification to continuous identity confidence. The organizations that win will combine identity verification, device intelligence, behavioral signals, and real-time risk monitoring across the entire customer journey, not just at onboarding.
Fraud is becoming a system. Defending against it has to be one too.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
The companies getting the most value from identity verification don’t treat it as fraud prevention. They treat it as customer enablement.
Every digital business has the same tension. Stop fraud without blocking good customers.
The organizations that get this right use identity verification to create confidence in their customer base. When you know who your legitimate customers are, you can approve more transactions, move faster, and reduce friction across the entire experience.
From what I see with customers, the real opportunity isn’t just reducing fraud losses. It’s unlocking growth safely.
Identity verification done well doesn’t slow the business down. It gives the business permission to move faster.
Donna Turner
Founder
On identity as a growth driver:
I am going to go with the glass half full. I believe agentic tools for good. Near term, by using agentic agents to go deeper and more broadly across transaction types, we will deliver efficiencies that will allow us to reinvest in new detection and prevention capabilities. As this evolves and the agentic agent is empowered to derive insights, we will pivot our counter as quickly as the fraudster pivots the attack vector.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
They need to think about all the points in the lifecycle where there are disparate and disconnected tools and processes for authentication. Identifying, installing and applying a consistent means of identity verification and application across the lifecycle ensures you more quickly build accurate profiles, identify anomalies and can apply friction or interdiction with greater accuracy & confidence.
On the future of authentication:
I don’t think authentication should be a competitive advantage. Every FI is battling the same bad guys, so collaboration and alignment to push the industry ahead faster and more securely is the most effective path. It benefits suppliers as well, as the demand for customization and exclusivity should be taken off the table.
Sinduri Valleru
Director, Fraud Strategy and Analytics
On what’s shaping fraud next:
AI is changing everything—for fraudsters and for us. Criminals are using it to write convincing phishing emails, clone voices in phone calls, and create fake identities that appear completely legitimate. The traditional approaches to fraud detection weren't built for this.
What keeps me going is that we have the same tools to fight back. Instead of relying on static checklists, we can evaluate the full context—whether a transaction makes sense for a specific person, at that moment, from that device. This allows teams to focus on the alerts that truly matter, rather than chasing thousands of false positives. It also enables systems that continuously learn and evolve as fraud tactics change.
The future belongs to teams that adapt faster than fraudsters—and that challenge is what drives me every day.
On the future of authentication:
Authentication should be adaptive and embedded into the customer journey—not positioned as a barrier. When security responds to risk in real time, good members move through without friction and bad actors hit resistance at every step. Many organizations still rely on overlapping fraud tools that operate in silos. Consolidating these into a cohesive stack reduces cost, speeds response times, and makes it easier to adapt as fraud tactics evolve.
The competitive edge is straightforward: invisible security for good customers and maximum friction for fraudsters. When done right, authentication becomes a business advantage—not just the cost of doing business.
Erin Vertin
Head of Fraud Prevention
On identity as a growth driver:
What I’m thinking about is the behavioral shift that is coming with AI. As consumers begin to use AI agents to interact with banks and merchants, we won’t just face new threats, but a fundamentally new way of customer engagement. That is forcing us to rethink identity, authorization and trust. It’s no longer who is the customer; it’s really who (or what) is acting on their behalf, what authority does ‘it’ have, and does the intent of the action align in a broader context. We are going to have to be able to distinguish malicious automation from customer authorized automation. The old mindset that “bots are bad” breaks down. What excites me is the whiteboard moment this creates. It requires strong collaboration across fraud, product, CIAM, and customer experience teams to redefine trust so we can keep bad activity out while enabling our customers to move faster and more seamlessly than ever.
On what’s shaping fraud next:
When done well, identity becomes a growth enabler. It reduces friction for trusted behavior, strengthens customer confidence, and allows FIs to expand into faster, more digital experiences. At the same time, it sharpens our ability to detect and stop fraud by continuously evaluating identity, behavior, and intent – within context-not just at onboarding, but throughout the lifecycle. The organizations that get this right can move from the ‘verify then allow’ model to ‘continuously understand and enable” and that is where you unlock not only protection but growth.
Dede Wakefield
CEO
On identity as a growth driver:
Fraud prevention is increasingly being shaped by the move to real-time, intelligence-driven decisions as fraudsters operate faster and blend digital, physical, and behavioral tactics. Organizations that can assess risk in the moment using transaction context and behavioral insight across channels will be far better positioned than those relying on down-stream or purely rules-based reviews. This shift turns fraud prevention into a proactive business capability that protects revenue, supports better customer experiences, and keeps pace with how fraud is happening today.
On the future of authentication:
As fraud tactics evolve, financial institutions need to move beyond one size fits all authentication and adopt risk-based, adaptive approaches that apply the right level of friction at the right time. When identity, transaction context, and behavioral insight are aligned across channels, authentication becomes seamless for both account holders and employees, supported by strong system connectivity and interoperability. This reduces operational strain, while strengthening security and delivering smoother experiences, turning trust and efficiency into a lasting competitive advantage.
If there is one takeaway from this year’s Women to Watch list, it is this: Fraud prevention is no longer just about defense. It is about building better experiences.
The leaders featured here are showing what that looks like in practice. They are using new technologies to stay ahead of emerging threats. They are treating identity as a business asset, not just a requirement. And they are designing authentication strategies that protect users while still making things easy and efficient.
Not every honoree answered every question, but their perspectives point in the same direction. The organizations that win will be the ones that connect security, growth, and customer trust.
That is not easy to do. But it is exactly what these 25 women are leading.
We are proud to recognize them and excited to see how their work continues to shape the future of fraud prevention.
The conversation doesn’t stop here. Discover more perspectives from the leaders building the future of digital trust and fraud prevention in our Innovator Series.
Conor Rector — Marketing Director at Mitek
Conor Rector is a content and customer advocacy leader focused on helping people understand identity, fraud prevention, and the technology shaping how we protect what’s real. With a background spanning storytelling, brand strategy, and community building, Conor brings a thoughtful, human-centered approach to complex topics.