Banks think they’re ready for tomorrow’s fraud. Feedzai’s survey suggests otherwise.
Feedzai’s new Fraud Readiness Index finds financial institutions are spending heavily on AI, but disconnected data and manual work are holding fraud teams back.
Banks and fintechs are confident they’re ready for the next wave of fraud, but the evidence suggests they’re overestimating themselves. In Feedzai’s latest research report, Confidence & Capability: The Feedzai Fraud Readiness Index 2026—which surveyed more than 1,000 senior fraud leaders across 12 countries—financial institutions rated their own fraud readiness at an average score of 80.2 out of 100. But when measured against their actual capabilities across data, AI, intelligence sharing, and fraud team operations, the average dropped to 66.9.
The 13.3-point gap indicates that while FIs recognize and are actively addressing the need for robust fraud capabilities to defend against AI-driven threats, intent and perception are not yet matching execution. Core improvement areas include better connecting data sources, deploying more mature AI tools like agents, and cutting down on time wasted via manual data collection.
Budgets don’t seem to be an obstacle to bridging this gap. Nearly every leader surveyed (96%) expects their budget for AI-powered fraud tools to grow over the next two years, but the basics are still slowing their fraud teams down:
- 73% say their analysts spend too much time manually pulling data from different systems instead of analyzing threats, the most consistent pain point in the report
- Only 41% have fully connected data across their fraud, anti-money laundering, compliance, and cybersecurity teams
In practice, gaps like these mean that an analyst investigating a suspicious payment may have to check several separate systems before they can see the full picture of a customer. Every minute spent doing that is a minute not stopping fraud.
The industry recognizes the need to work together to bridge these gaps. Fraudsters excel at intelligence sharing, and scams, where criminals trick customers into sending money themselves, are now the biggest source of fraud losses in 10 of the 12 countries surveyed.
That means that banks are responding in a way that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: 87% would consider securely sharing fraud intelligence with other institutions, including their direct competitors.
“Banks aren’t short on ambition or budget. What’s holding them back is inefficiency: data that doesn’t connect and analysts spending their day hunting for information instead of stopping fraud with modern technology such as AI,” said Nuno Sebastião, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Feedzai. “Criminals don’t target one bank at a time, so the industry can’t defend itself one bank at a time either. The fact that most institutions would consider sharing intelligence with their competitors shows how much has changed in the fight against fraud.”
Only a quarter (25.5%) of institutions qualified as “leading” with a readiness score of 76 (out of 100) or higher, reaching the Index’s top readiness tier. According to the report, what sets them apart is that they’ve prioritized connecting their data and freeing up their analysts’ time.
Overall, the industry scores 69.3 out of 100, and 73% of institutions sit in the “Capable” tier (51-75). There are encouraging signs: 68% of institutions are using or planning agentic AI for three or more fraud use cases, though trust in autonomous decision-making is their top concern.
The full report, which includes results for each of the 12 countries, is available at www.feedzai.com/resource/fraud-readiness-index/. Beginning October 22, institutions will be able to measure themselves against the Index sample with Feedzai’s Fraud Readiness Self-Assessment Tool.
Methodology
The Feedzai Fraud Readiness Index 2026 is based on a survey of 1,030 senior fraud and financial crime leaders between July 13 and August 4, 2026. Respondents were based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US. Institutions were scored across five equally weighted areas: leadership vision, network intelligence, data infrastructure, AI maturity, and operational structure. The “actually in place” score of 67 (66.9) averages the four areas that don’t rely on self-assessment. The self-rating of 80 (80.2) is respondents’ own assessment of their readiness. Findings on fraud losses were compared with Feedzai platform data covering more than 120 billion transactions.
