Preventing fraud in Swiss payments 

Scams are becoming ever more sophisticated. What trends are you seeing at the moment? 

Besides phishing, fraud has been among the problems most frequently reported to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) for years. It includes fake calls purporting to be from authorities, advance-fee scams (for example involving fraudulent investment offers or falsified invoices), fake competitions designed to persuade people to hand over personal information or money, and classified advertisement fraud in which the goods offered for sale don’t exist or payment processes are manipulated.

Why is this on the rise? 

There are a number of reasons. One is surely the capabilities of today’s technology. Tools supported by artificial intelligence (AI) are now cheap and easy to find, so even amateurs can create highly convincing text, speech or videos. Some studies show that more than 40% of all detected fraud attempts in the European financial and payments sector are now AI-driven. Criminals use methods such as deepfakes, synthetic identifies and targeted social engineering to deceive people and gain access to sensitive data or financial assets.

That is a lucrative business for the criminals. 

It certainly is. Recent studies estimate the losses caused to consumers by scams worldwide at more than USD 400 billion. Switzerland is not immune to this threat. The Swiss crime statistics for 2024 show a 40% increase in the number of cyber fraud cases to over 42,000.

How are Swiss banks responding? 

The Swiss banks are aware of the growing threat of online fraud. Increasing payment fraud undermines customers’ trust in digital payment methods, results in unnecessary costs and increases the risk to banks’ reputations. As a result, they’re taking targeted measures to inform and protect their customers as effectively as possible. 

These include measures to raise awareness in addition to technical and organisational measures. Awareness campaigns for customers and staff are vital here. Some are run by the banks themselves, some by initiatives like EBAS or Card Security. They aim to inform people about the latest types of scam and offer specific tips on avoiding them.  

As regards technology, banks are employing multi-stage security concepts with high standards that identify and block suspicious payments as well as secure authentication using multi-factor procedures, biometric solutions and increasingly also context-based authentication. Moreover, they’re implementing organisational restrictions such as not accepting payment instructions via e-mail or applying additional checks to video calls.

Where does the industry see room for improvement? 

Over and above individual institutions’ measures, the SBA’s preliminary study shows that closer collaboration in certain areas can help to make existing efforts more effective and efficient. This includes coordinated awareness campaigns, analysing transaction data across multiple banks and structured sharing of expertise on specific means of payment and industries. It’s especially important to involve further actors, namely telecom companies, digital marketplaces and social networks, since these also form part of fraud chains. Taking information and findings from cantonal police authorities on board is also a key success factor in a constantly changing environment.

How much progress has been made as regards implementing these recommendations? 

There have been further talks between the relevant stakeholders and banks on implementing joint awareness campaigns. The focus next year will be on creating more clarity in terms of goals, roadmaps and planned governance. I’m confident that we can make a big step towards achieving this shared ambition in 2026. 

Further feasibility studies have also been carried out in relation to technical measures. The planned risk scoring service will help institutions to identify suspicious transactions on the network more accurately and above all in real time. The sender bank can request a risk score based on past transactions on the network at the execution stage. This score then flows into its risk models as an extra variable. The system will continually learn to spot new types of fraud while at the same time minimising the number of false positives so that legitimate payments aren’t blocked unnecessarily. A comparable approach used by EBA Clearing serves as a reference. 

The SBA is also working to promote the sharing of fraud expertise across various industries – including payments, telecoms, online marketplaces and social media – as well as with the relevant authorities. The aim here is to pinpoint new or developing fraud scenarios at an early stage and support the industry’s efforts as much as possible in terms of prevention and implementing joint measures. Fraud happens along a complex chain in which various actors play a decisive role. Close collaboration between all concerned is thus essential: from protection mechanisms against SIM swapping and caller ID spoofing at telecom companies to blocking fraudulent accounts on platforms and combating fake profiles and scam campaigns on social media. A coordinated approach is vital to ensuring that preventive measures are both effective and proportionate. We’ll be focusing on that next year in a dedicated working group.

To conclude, how do you view the banks’ role in fraud prevention? 

Financial criminals today act within transnational, professionally organised networks. Fighting fraud effectively in the age of digital financial services therefore requires more than just stronger technological defences. Trust and increased collaboration between banks and other actors are needed too. The Swiss financial centre is ideally positioned to implement effective fraud prevention measures through greater collaboration. 

With this in mind, the SBA has made preventing fraud a strategic priority and is continuing its working group to step up interaction with banks and promote additional, effective measures together with other partners.