Authorized Fraud Is the Threat
US Financial Institutions Aren’t Ready For

Authorized fraud is now the fastest-growing financial crime in the US.

Fraud threats have changed. The controls haven’t.

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US Fraud Losses Are Rising as Scams Scale

Numbers are increasing even as unauthorized fraud controls mature

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Reported losses to the FBI IC3 in 2025.
85% ($17.7B) were cyber-enabled fraud losses 

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Fraud losses by US consumers in 2024
25% increase over the prior year.

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Projected Authorized Push Payment (APP)
fraud losses by 2028 

For decades, stopping fraud meant stopping account takeover. Detect the intruder. Block the transaction. Close the gap. Financial Institutions invested heavily in those controls. The numbers improved. Unauthorized fraud losses stabilized.

Then the threat moved.

Starting around 2022, a fundamental shift in how fraud is perpetrated changed the calculus for every fraud and financial crime team in the country. Authorized fraud is growing faster than unauthorized fraud for the first time. Technology has made it possible to run scams at scale and speed, at a lower cost than ever before. And the controls built for account takeover were never designed for this.

Authorized Fraud Is Changing the Prevention Playbook

The fraud landscape shifted faster than most institutions anticipated. The financial institutions  that close the gap will be the ones that understand how the threat has changed, not just how to respond to the version they already solved.

Relevant for Heads of Fraud Operations and Financial Crime Directors at US financial institutions managing unauthorized and authorized fraud exposure under Regulation E and NACHA’s evolving fraud requirements.

“Four years ago, the way fraud is perpetrated changed completely. The industry is facing a convergence of technology and the ability to run scams at scale, for less time and less money.”

Chris Caruana, COO Acoru

Three Things Fraud Leaders Should Be Asking

1. Financial institutions have stabilized unauthorized fraud. So why are total losses still rising?

Strong controls. Mature detection. Years of investment. Financial institutions stabilized the account takeover problem. And yet total fraud losses keep rising. The coverage that worked for one threat isn't built for another.

2. Are our existing controls designed for modern fraud, or the fraud we faced years ago?

Authorized fraud began accelerating at a rate that no transaction-monitoring system was built to handle. Automation and social engineering at scale lowered the cost of fraud while raising the volume. The economics now favor the attacker.

3. Does my coverage expose threats that start before a session begins?

Unauthorized fraud controls are still necessary. But they are no longer sufficient. The problem is, how can fraud teams build coverage for a threat that starts long before a transaction is initiated?

 

What Acoru Delivers for US Fraud Teams

Most fraud controls are built around the transaction. Acoru is built around the account.

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Evaluate account risk continuously

 

Acoru continuously classifies accounts so your team sees the full picture, not just the payment in front of them.

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Both sides of the payment

 

Acoru looks at first-party and counterparty risk, which matters because scams are built around mule accounts.

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Expose scams before a transaction is initiated

 

Pre-fraud signals identify accounts moving toward victim or mule states before a transaction is initiated. Early detection, not post-payment alerts.

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Keep your data on-prem where it belongs

 

On-prem and private cloud deployment means your customer data never leaves your environment. Full data sovereignty.

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Grantular account risk classifications 

 

Classify accounts by specific risk states, from victim and unwitting mule activity to criminal accounts, so teams can intervene with confidence.

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Improve alert precision 

 

Reduce false positives by combining account, counterparty, and mule-risk signals before intervention.
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From Insight to Action

Acoru helps US fraud teams expose fraud threats earlier, reduce losses, and improve alert accuracy.