80% of Financial Institutions Hit by AI Agent Attacks, BioCatch Survey Finds
Source: Fintech News Singapore
A new global survey from BioCatch reveals that 80% of financial institutions have encountered attacks carried out by AI agents, with 84% of professionals believing agentic AI will become the industry's largest exploitable vulnerability within the next year.
Agentic AI is rapidly reshaping the cyber fraud landscape, and financial institutions are on the front lines. A sweeping new survey from BioCatch covering 1,440 fraud management professionals across 25 countries finds that 80% of organisations have already faced an AI agent-powered attack. Published in Singapore by Fintech News Singapore, the report draws on data from BioCatch's "The Future of Digital Trust" report and is corroborated by Interpol's 2026 Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment and BCG analysis.
The data paints a stark picture: 81% of respondents reported an increase in fraud attempts year-on-year in 2026, up from 71% in 2025, while 76% reported rising fraud losses — a sharp jump from 59% the prior year. Agentic AI systems can autonomously plan and execute entire fraud schemes, slashing the cost of scams by over 90% according to BCG, and potentially doubling the volume of successful fraudulent activity. The most common AI-enabled fraud types include deepfake social engineering (50% of respondents), automated phishing (48%), and automated money laundering (44%).
Regionally, Latin America saw the highest exposure at 89%, while APAC and EMEA both reported 79% of institutions encountering agentic AI attacks. APAC also recorded a 20-percentage-point jump in year-on-year fraud losses — the second-largest increase globally. Despite the escalating threat, 48% of financial institutions globally now spend US$10 million or more annually on fraud prevention, and professionals see defensive agentic AI as a promising countermeasure, particularly in real-time transaction monitoring (40%), behavioural analytics (34%), and identity verification (27%).
Why it matters for Singapore: As a regional financial hub, Singapore's banks and fintechs are squarely in the crosshairs of AI-powered fraud. The APAC region's sharp rise in both attack frequency and loss severity underscores the urgency for Singapore-based financial institutions to invest in defensive AI systems. With the Monetary Authority of Singapore actively pushing for stronger digital resilience, the BioCatch findings serve as both a warning and a roadmap for where fraud prevention resources should be directed.