AI-powered scams become biggest payment fraud threat -Visa report

By Funmilola Gboteku

Visa, a multinational firm into payment card services says Artificial intelligence enabled scams have emerged as the fastest-growing source of consumer payment fraud globally as cybercriminals increasingly target people.

Visa stated this in its Mid-year 2026 Biannual Threats Report released on Wednesday in Lagos.

The report said scammers were increasingly using AI tools and social engineering tactics to manipulate consumers into authorising fraudulent payments themselves.

It indicated that from July to December 2025, Visa identified nearly one billion dollars in scam-related activity, making scams the largest category of consumer payment fraud.

According to the report, fraudsters now impersonate trusted brands and institutions, create a sense of urgency and deceive victims into completing seemingly legitimate transactions.

The report said stronger network-level security had reduced opportunities for direct system compromises, forcing criminals to shift their focus to exploiting human trust.

It revealed that fraud involving device tokens declined by 9.6 per cent between July and December 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.

The report identified accelerating scams, growing use of AI in fraud, migration of attacks from technology to people, and evolving ransomware trends as key developments shaping payment security.

It stated that global ransomware activity rose by 26 per cent during the review period compared with the corresponding period in 2024.

However, only 23 per cent of ransomware victims paid ransoms, the lowest level on record, reflecting improved resilience and recovery capabilities, according to the report.

Commenting, Mr Paul Fabara, Visa’s Chief Risk and Client Services Officer said that payments at network level continued to get safer, but threats were evolving faster than ever

Fabara said criminals were increasingly using deception, urgency and AI-enabled tools to exploit trust, requiring stronger collaboration across the payments ecosystem.

Also, Andrew Uaboi, Vice President and Cluster Head, Visa West Africa, said AI had significantly lowered the barriers to entry for fraudsters.

“What once required deep technical skill can now be executed with a prompt,” Uaboi said.

He said intelligence-driven defence and coordinated action across the ecosystem were becoming increasingly critical to protecting consumers from emerging threats.

(NAN)