Scam Prevention, Bank Collaboration & Instant Payments in Mexico and Colombia

Fraud prevention teams across Latin America are dealing with the same headaches, whether they're sitting in Mexico City or Bogotá.

In this episode of Fraud Signals, Acoru's market leads for the two regions compare notes on what they're seeing on the ground: an explosion in scams, the arrival of instant payments, and a banking sector that is finally warming up to collaboration. From job scams on WhatsApp to mule account detection, the patterns are strikingly similar across borders, and so is the appetite for something genuinely different.

If you work in fraud prevention at a financial institution in Latin America, this conversation will feel very familiar.

Key Takeaways

• Scams dominate the fraud landscape. They now account for 80–85% of all fraud in the region, and 8 in 10 people in Mexico are regularly receiving fraudulent messages or calls

• Fake job offers are a growing threat. They are increasingly used as a recruitment tool for money mule networks, often arriving via WhatsApp groups promising easy money for simple online tasks

• Instant payments bring new risk. Colombia's recent launch is putting fraud teams on high alert, drawing on lessons from markets like Mexico and Brazil that went through it first

• Banks are ready to collaborate. Institutions that once guarded their fraud data closely are now actively looking for ways to share intelligence, seeing collective defence as the only viable path forward

• No single technology wins. Institutions know it, and the conversation has shifted to how different tools work together rather than which one comes out on top

• Complementary beats replacement. Platforms that layer onto existing infrastructure are getting a much warmer reception than those asking institutions to start from scratch

• AI needs to earn its place. When capabilities are tied to specific, practical fraud management use cases, they land. Broad AI claims, not so much