The Government of Canada’s launch of an Anti-Fraud Strategy and Financial Crimes Agency acknowledges a reality that banks, fintechs and payment processors already know: the scale, sophistication and speed of digital fraud are outpacing traditional defences. These are vital national commitments, to be sure, but they also underscore the need for companies, institutions and governments to evolve faster than the attacks they face.
Fraud has become one of the defining challenges of our time. In 2024 alone, fraudsters stole $643 million in Canada, the federal government reports, with that amount representing an increase of nearly 300 percent since 2020. Because only 5-10 percent of scams are reported, however, the real figure is much higher.
At the same time, threats are growing more complex. Fraud-as-a-service (FaaS) markets on the dark web make AI-powered attack tools, cloned cards and personal data available to anyone with cryptocurrency and a criminal motive. Fraud networks now deploy tactics ranging from SIM-swap and account-takeover schemes to rogue point-of-sale terminals and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Fraudsters no longer rely on tricking people. Instead, they mimic digital behaviour, spoof devices and strike in milliseconds.
Financial institutions too often depend on reactive systems that flag suspicious activity only after losses occur. In an ecosystem where transactions happen in fractions of a second, reacting in minutes, hours or days isn’t good enough.
That’s what makes Budget 2025’s measures so timely. Ottawa is formally establishing a Financial Crimes Agency to centralize enforcement and coordination against large-scale financial crime, alongside a national Anti-Fraud Strategy that unites law enforcement, regulators and private-sector partners. Together, these initiatives aim to close the gap between the sophistication of digital scams and the speed of institutional responses.
Nearly 1,500 payment firms now fall under direct Bank of Canada supervision through the Retail Payment Activities Act, a major step toward reducing fraud risk in peer-to-peer and real-time transactions. Budget 2025 also introduces reforms to eliminate hidden transfer fees and strengthen disclosure requirements for banks and fintechs, empowering consumers to identify unauthorized activity sooner. And by earmarking $925.6 million over five years for AI infrastructure and cybersecurity innovation, the federal government is signalling that AI is as critical to fraud prevention as it is to productivity and growth.
That said, public policy can’t succeed in isolation. The private sector must match this momentum by investing in technology, talent and intelligence systems that use real-time transaction intelligence, machine learning and generative and agentic AI not just to detect anomalies, but to understand context and intent. (Agentic AI acts autonomously to complete a goal through multi-step planning, while generative AI creates new content in response to a prompt.)
Modern fraud prevention demands systems that analyze behaviour dynamically across channels, devices and time by identifying what’s normal for each customer and intercepting threats before they complete. Done right, this protects both the institution and the customer experience, ensuring legitimate transactions aren’t slowed by false positives.
As Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle for Fraud and Financial Crime Prevention notes, criminals are already exploiting AI to create deepfakes, voice clones and hyper-personalized phishing attacks. The only effective response is to use those same technologies defensively to explain, score and adapt fraud models in real time, making them more accurate with every transaction.
But technology is only part of the answer. Fraud isn’t just a technical problem, it’s also a trust problem. When customers no longer believe their funds or identities are safe, they hesitate to participate in the financial system. And when trust erodes, the ripple effects touch everything: inclusion, innovation and economic growth.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are coming online and accessing digital financial services for the first time, yet they face daily fraud attempts that threaten to undermine confidence before it can take root. A single breach doesn’t just harm one victim, it damages the credibility of the entire digital economy.
That’s why fraud prevention cannot be treated as a cost centre. It’s a strategic investment in inclusion and stability. Each successful fraud attempt represents not only a financial loss, but a loss of faith in banks, in payment systems and in the idea that technology can be trusted to manage our money.
To sustain that trust, financial ecosystems must become proactive rather than reactive. That means sharing intelligence across institutions, industries and borders; aligning regulators and banks on data transparency and rapid response; and building technology that delivers real-time visibility so fraud can be stopped in milliseconds, not discovered days later.
Trust, after all, is the most valuable currency in finance. It determines whether people save, invest and transact, and it underpins every relationship between a customer and a bank. The more effectively we can protect that trust, the more inclusive and resilient our financial system becomes.
Article by INETCO CEO and Founder, Bijan Sanii, originally published in Financial Post on November 17, 2025.