Digital Payment Fraud Statistics 2026: Losses, Scams and Trends

Losses reported to the FBI’s IC3 reached $20.877 billion in 2025, a 26% increase in losses from 2024, across 1,008,597 complaints. The FTC logged a parallel count: $15.9 billion in consumer-reported fraud losses across 3 million reports, up from over $12 billion the previous year. Those two US series anchor most digital payment fraud statistics.

UK Finance data shows £1.28 billion was stolen through various forms of payment fraud in the UK in 2025. Across the European Economic Area, the total value of fraud increased to €4.2 billion in 2024 from €3.5 billion in 2023. In the UK and Irish data, losses are shifting toward scams that persuade people to send the money themselves, though EEA card fraud still rose 29% in 2024. The figures below cover US, UK, European, Irish, Australian and Singapore reporting, plus card and crypto fraud.

Key Takeaways

• Authorised fraud made up about 45% of UK payment fraud losses in 2025.
• In Ireland, the Central Bank puts authorised push payment fraud at 45% of total fraud by value, up from its share of 35.2% in 2024.
• Complaints involving cryptocurrency carried losses equal to about 54.4% of the IC3 total in 2025.
• The US accounted for 26.31% of card volume worldwide in 2024, but 41.87% of losses to fraud globally.
• Over 18 months of mandatory reimbursement, 88% of the money lost to APP scams has been reimbursed to victims, against a 61% reimbursement rate in 2024.
• Card payment fraud was 17 times higher when the payment recipient was outside the EEA.
• About 74% of US organizations were affected by business email compromise in 2025.

Editor’s Choice

• IC3 reported losses, 2025: $20.877 billion, with a $20,699 average loss.
• FTC investment scam losses, 2025: $7.9 billion, the most money lost to any scam type.
• Global card fraud losses, 2024: $33.41 billion, down 1.2%.
• Crypto-linked IC3 losses, 2025: $11.366 billion across 181,565 complaints.
• UK unauthorised fraud prevented, 2025: £1.68 billion, equivalent to 70p in every £1 of attempted attacks.
• Australian scam losses, 2025: A$2.18 billion across 274,577 reports involving financial losses.
• Singapore scam losses, first half of 2026: About S$410.6 million, down 17.9%.

Digital Payment Fraud Statistics by Country

Compiled from 15 publications: 12 from regulators, central banks, consumer agencies and law enforcement, and 3 industry reports (UK Finance, AFP and the Nilson Report).

• Publication dates run from December 2025 to September 2026.
• Only official statistics and named industry datasets qualify; no market-research sellers or vendor estimates.
• Each body counts fraud differently, so figures are shown side by side and never summed into one global total.
• The FBI’s IC3 recorded $20.877 billion in losses in 2025 across 1,008,597 complaints.
• The FTC received 3 million fraud reports in 2025, with $15.9 billion in reported losses.
• EEA payment fraud amounted to €3.4 billion in 2022, €3.5 billion in 2023 and €4.2 billion in 2024.
• In 2025, Australians made 481,523 scam reports, and 274,577 of them involved financial losses totalling A$2.18 billion.
• UK losses, at £1.28 billion, were the highest since the peak during the pandemic in 2021.
• Irish fraudulent payment value stood at €179.04 million in 2025, up 27.2% from €140.80 million in 2024.
• Singapore scam losses fell 17.9% to about S$410.6 million in the first half of 2026.

Source: FBI IC3 2025, FTC March 2026, EBA and ECB December 2025, National Anti-Scam Centre March 2026, UK Finance 2026, Singapore Police Force August 2026, Central Bank of Ireland September 2026

US Fraud Losses Reported to the FBI by Year

• In 2025, losses reported to IC3 continued to climb, surpassing the $20 billion mark.
• Investment-related fraud was once again the largest component of these losses, followed by business email compromises and tech support scams.
• Reported losses in 2025 were about 4.97 times the $4.2 billion recorded in 2020.
• Losses grew about 32.8% between 2023 and 2024.
• The average reported loss per complaint was $20,699 in 2025.
• The FBI’s Operation Level Up, which countered crypto investment scams, has reduced potential losses by more than $500 million since 2024.

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Recent Developments

• September 24, 2026: In an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the FTC announced it is considering whether to update its Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses to address ad-optimization practices that may be furthering impersonation scams.
• September 4, 2026: The Central Bank of Ireland reported that cross-border payments accounted for 69.8% of total fraudulent payment value, amounting to €124.89 million.
• August 26, 2026: The Singapore Police Force’s mid-year brief showed scam cases fell 14.4% to 16,821 in the first half of 2026.
• July 30, 2026: The Payment Systems Regulator’s APP scams reimbursement dashboard showed Q1 2026 saw about 58,400 reimbursable claims closed, a 5% increase on the previous quarter.
• June 15, 2026: FTC data showed people reported losing nearly $1 billion to business impersonators, with the highest reported losses to bank impersonators.

US Fraud Losses by Crime Type and Victim Age

• Investment fraud led IC3 losses at $8.65 billion in 2025.
• Business email compromise followed at $3.05 billion.
• Tech and customer support scams cost $2.13 billion.
• Personal data breaches accounted for $1.31 billion.
• Confidence and romance scams cost $929.3 million, and government impersonation cost $797.9 million.
• Complainants aged 60+ filed 201,266 complaints with $7.7 billion in losses, the most of any age group shown.
• That age group carried about 36.9% of all losses reported to IC3.
• The six age groups in the chart below add up to about $16.7 billion; the FBI report does not assign the rest of the $20.877 billion total to an age group.

FTC Consumer Fraud Losses by Scam Type and Payment Method

• Consumers reported losing the most money ($7.9 billion) to investment scams in 2025.
• Approximately half of the total reported fraud losses for 2025 are attributable to investment scams, with an average individual loss of over $10,000.
• People reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, with reported losses increasing nearly three times since 2020.
• Government impersonators took about $920 million, up from $789 million in 2024.
• Nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said it started on social media, with reported losses reaching $2.1 billion.
• People reported losing more money to scams that started on Facebook than on any other social media platform.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, March to June 2026

Which payment methods lose the most money to scams?

In 2025, consumers reported the highest aggregate losses by sending money to scammers via bank payments, followed by cryptocurrency, while credit card payments were the most frequently identified payment method in fraud reports. Both of the top loss methods move money that is hard to pull back once it leaves the account, which is why scammers steer victims toward them, a pattern visible in the largest payment fraud cases.

Crypto Payment Fraud Statistics

• The FBI’s IC3 counted 181,565 complaints involving cryptocurrency in 2025, up 21% from 2024.
• Crypto-linked losses reached $11.366 billion, up 22% from 2024.
• Victims aged 60+ lost about $4.43 billion to crypto-linked fraud.
• That age group carried about 39% of crypto-linked losses.
• Victim complaints are a separate stream from exchange hacks and protocol exploits, which our crypto security and fraud data tracks on the platform side.

Source: FBI IC3 Annual Report 2025

By the numbers: Complaints involving cryptocurrency carried $11.366 billion in losses in 2025. Against the $20.877 billion IC3 total, that equals about 54.4% of all reported losses. Crypto sits under more than half of the losses the FBI records, which puts exchanges and on-ramps at the center of any recovery effort.

Global Card Fraud Losses

• Payment card fraud losses worldwide dipped 1.2% to $33.41 billion in 2024, according to the Nilson Report.
• That fraud was tied to global card volume of $51.920 trillion.
• The loss rate was 6.43 cents per $100 in 2024, down from 6.58 cents the prior year.
• The Nilson Report projects fraud losses of $41.06 billion by 2030 and $48.50 billion by 2034.
• Cumulative card fraud losses over the next 10 years are projected to total $407.60 billion.
• Our credit card fraud trends coverage breaks the card side down by channel and card type.

Why it matters: Card fraud’s loss rate fell to 6.43 cents per $100 in 2024, while losses reported to IC3 rose 26% in 2025. Chips, tokenization and authentication have made cards harder to exploit, and in UK Finance’s 2025 data the growth sits in authorised payments, up 19% while unauthorised losses fell 5%.

UK Payment Fraud Losses

• UK Finance figures show authorised losses of £576.4 million in 2025, up 19%, while unauthorised losses fell 5% to £703.4 million.
• Authorised fraud made up about 45% of total losses in 2025, up from about 34.9% in 2020.
• In 2025 alone, banks prevented £1.68 billion in unauthorised payment fraud.
• On average, eight people were defrauded every minute, with almost £2,500 lost in that same minute.
• Losses from purchase, investment and romance scams reached their highest levels on record.
• Losses from invoice and mandate scams, CEO fraud and impersonation scams fell to record lows.

UK Authorised Push Payment Fraud by Scam Type

• Investment scams caused £221.5 million in APP losses in 2025, the highest ever for that scam type.
• Purchase scams reached £118.1 million, also the highest ever.
• Bank and police impersonation fell to £55.5 million, the lowest since 2020.
• 66% of APP fraud begins online and a further 17% via telecoms.
• The Payment Systems Regulator reported that 88% (£316 million) of the money lost to APP scams was reimbursed to victims between October 7, 2024 and March 31, 2026.
• Consumers reported around 438,300 claims, and 301,500 were in scope for reimbursement.
• 82% of claims were closed within five business days.

Key finding: Under mandatory reimbursement, 88% of the money lost to APP scams has been reimbursed to victims, while UK Finance reported a 61% reimbursement rate in 2024. Just 3% of claims were rejected because the customer did not take enough care. Shifting liability onto banks has not made victims careless, which weakens the main argument against reimbursement.

What is authorised push payment fraud?

Authorised push payment fraud, also known as manipulation of the payer fraud, is where fraudsters gain trust by using social engineering to deceive consumers into authorising payments. Purchase, investment, romance and advance fee scams are malicious payee frauds, where the payee absconds with the funds without providing goods or services.

UK Fraud Case Volumes and Remote Purchase Fraud

• Confirmed fraud cases reached a record high of nearly 4.1 million in 2025, up 11%.
• Unauthorised cases rose to 3,814,128 and authorised cases to 248,070.
• Card fraud case volumes rose 11% in 2025, while losses were broadly unchanged from the previous year.
• Remote purchase fraud cases rose 13%, with a total value of £423.5 million.
• Remote banking cases rose 11%, but losses were 27% lower than in 2024.
• Intelligence points to social engineering to extract one-time passcodes, which are then used to register digital wallets or make one-off transactions.
• That passcode tactic grows with digital wallet adoption, because a stolen card added to a criminal’s phone pays like a genuine one.

Source: UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2026

European Payment Fraud Statistics

• EEA payment fraud amounted to €4.2 billion in 2024.
• That was a rise of about 20% on 2023.
• The fraud rate was stable at around 0.002% of total transaction value in 2024.
• Credit transfer fraud losses were €2.200 billion in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 16%.
• Card payment fraud with EU/EEA-issued cards reached €1.329 billion, a year-on-year increase of 29%.
• Payment service users bore approximately 85% of credit transfer fraud losses in 2024, mainly as a result of scams that tricked users into initiating fraudulent transactions.
• Transactions verified with SCA were generally less susceptible to fraud than those without it, especially card payments.

Ireland Payment Fraud Statistics

• The Central Bank of Ireland reported that fraudulent payment value rose 27.2% to €179.04 million in 2025.
• Fraud affects approximately 1 in 10,000 payment transactions.
• Authorised push payment fraud reached €74.86 million, which the Central Bank puts at 45% of total fraud by value.
• That fraud type represents 67.2% of all credit transfer fraud, up from 45.6% in 2024.
• Cheques recorded the highest average fraud value at €9,741, and credit transfers the second-highest at €2,412.
• E-money payments rose from €692 in 2024 to €1,427 in 2025 on the same measure.

Worth noting: Push payment fraud made up 45% of Irish fraud value on the Central Bank’s figures, up from 35.2% in 2024. Across the EEA, payment service users bore approximately 85% of credit transfer fraud losses. When the victim authorizes the payment, the loss usually stays with the victim, unless a reimbursement rule like the UK’s moves it.

Business Payments Fraud Statistics

• More than three-quarters of US organizations (76%) experienced attempted or actual payments fraud in 2025.
• Just 17% of organizations leverage AI to combat payments fraud.
• Organizations using AI reported improved detection of deepfake technology (45%) and real-time identification capabilities (43%).
• 72% of organizations using checks plan to continue using them, and over two-thirds of these (68%) cited vendor requirements.
• The AFP survey was conducted in January 2026 among 465 treasury practitioners.

Source: AFP 2026 Payments Fraud and Control Survey, April 2026

Bank-Reported Payment Fraud Trends

• Federal Reserve Financial Services surveyed 400+ risk professionals at financial institutions.
• Debit card fraud remained the most widespread type, as 75% of institutions reported attempts and estimated it resulted in 40% of their total payment fraud losses.
• In ACH, increases in account holder scams were seen by 41% of institutions.
• Account takeover by authorized parties affected 23% of institutions, a 7% year-over-year increase.
• Institutions cited increases in counterfeit checks (+32%), check washing (+21%) and forgery (+18%).
• How banks catch these attempts is covered in our bank fraud detection figures.

Asia-Pacific Scam Losses

• Investment scams led Australian losses at A$837.7 million in 2025.
• Australian losses rose 7.8% compared with 2024, but are down 29.7% since the peak of A$3.1 billion in 2022.
• The top five scam types accounted for 60% of total losses in 2025.
• The Singapore Police Force reported that scam losses fell 17.9% to about S$410.6 million in the first half of 2026, from about S$500.2 million a year earlier.
• The median loss per case fell 19.8% to S$1,350.
• The Anti-Scam Centre recovered more than S$97.7 million, including over S$8 million in cryptocurrency.
• About 69.5% of scam cases involved losses of less than S$5,000.
• Investment scams lead the loss tables in Australia and the US alike, and the warning signs of a crypto investment scam repeat across both markets.

Conclusion

Losses reported to IC3 reached $20.877 billion, a 26% increase, and UK authorised fraud losses rose 19% while unauthorised losses fell 5%. Read together, the UK and Irish data point the same way: criminals increasingly persuade victims to push the money themselves, through bank transfers that settle fast and are hard to reverse.

The FTC is now seeking comment on whether platforms’ ad-optimization tools further impersonation scams. The UK reimbursement results suggest liability rules can change who carries the loss, and the next round of regulator datasets will show whether other markets follow; for crypto-side exposure, our wallet drainer incident counts track the on-chain end of the same trend.