BANK FRAUD WAR: ABSA Pushes Industry -Wide Intelligence Sharing as AI Scams Surge

• Absa is calling for banks, fintechs and telecoms companies to break down information-sharing barriers as organised cybercriminals use artificial intelligence, mule accounts and digital channels to make fraud faster, cheaper and harder to detect.

The call comes as financial institutions face increasingly sophisticated attacks that exploit the speed and scale of digital banking, with criminals using technology to target customers and financial institutions across the sector.

Absa chief compliance officer Fatima Newman said banks and other financial-services players need to share intelligence on suspicious activity, including the use of mule accounts, to prevent criminals from moving between institutions undetected.

The bank’s group chief governance officer, Prabashni Naidoo, said fraud should not be treated as a competitive issue because financial institutions face a common threat from increasingly sophisticated criminal networks.

The compliance challenge is significant. Information sharing between regulated institutions can raise concerns around confidentiality, competition and data protection, yet fragmented intelligence can give fraudsters room to exploit gaps between banks, fintechs and telecommunications providers.

AI is adding another layer of risk. The 2026 Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found deepfake social engineering was among the AI-enabled fraud schemes reported as having increased significantly over the previous two years, alongside consumer fraud and scams.

Absa’s own first-half 2026 results showed R129 million in fraud losses affecting the bank and its customers, while total operational-risk losses rose to R369 million.

For compliance teams, the emerging control question is no longer simply whether a bank can detect suspicious activity inside its own systems. It is whether institutions can share actionable intelligence quickly enough to identify mule networks, repeat fraud patterns and cross-platform attacks before funds disappear.

The pressure is particularly acute as legacy technology, limited data visibility and slow internal processes leave some institutions struggling to keep pace with rapidly evolving fraud techniques.