Fraud Scan Day: Worldline’s yearly view on the evolving fraud landscape

Behind every figure shared during Fraud Scan Day, there is both an engine and a team at work and this is what truly makes the difference in fighting fraud.

On one side, Worldline Fraud Management's detection system scan billions of euros of transactions, with models trained to spot suspicious patterns and block them in real time, before the money ever leaves the cardholder's account. On the other side, there are the people behind the screen: the analysts and investigators of Worldline's Fraud Managed Services, who bring the context, judgment and experience needed to interpret what the engine flags. Automatic blocking brings speed; human expertise brings nuance. Together, they give clients a layer of protection built on a true human-in-the-loop approach, where every alert benefits from both the precision of the machine and the insight of an expert.

The good news from this past year is that the combined effort is paying off. Gross fraud went down compared to the previous year, and the total potential fraud exposure shrank significantly before any preventive measures even kicked in. Worldline Fraud Management declined a growing number of fraudulent transactions, blocking millions of euros before they ever reached a cardholder's account. Cardholder notification rates also improved noticeably year-on-year, meaning more people are warned faster when something suspicious happens on their card.

At the same time, the average value per fraud case keeps rising. Fraudsters are becoming more targeted and more patient, focusing on fewer but higher-value strikes.

That is exactly the kind of insight Fraud Scan Day is designed to surface.

Phishing remains the number one threat

If one trend stood out above all others, it is the absolute dominance of phishing.

Together with its variants — smishing, vishing and quishing — it accounts for roughly 60% of all reported fraud cases affecting Belgian citizens, with 10 million suspicious messages flagged on Safeonweb in 2025 alone.

What makes phishing so much harder to spot today is artificial intelligence. Generative AI has wiped out many of the warning signs cardholders used to rely on: the messages now arrive in flawless Dutch, French or English, and deepfake audio and video are starting to appear in CEO fraud and targeted attacks. Fraudsters move across email, SMS, phone calls and QR codes at the same time, building a sense of urgency that is hard to resist in the moment.

The creativity behind these attacks is striking. In Brussels, drivers have been scammed at electric charging points where fraudsters simply stuck a fake QR code on top of the legitimate one. Fake fraud calls impersonating Cardstop have circulated widely enough to be exposed on national radio. On social media, attackers exploit Meta's own notification system to take over Facebook and Instagram business pages and run fraudulent ad campaigns from trusted profiles.

Zooming out, the European context tells the same story. EU card fraud losses reached 1.329 billion euros in 2024, up 29% year-on-year. Card-Not-Present fraud concentrates 83% of all card fraud value, even though it represents only 28% of transaction value (2025 Report on Payment Fraud). Card fraud at the point of sale, by contrast, remains marginal thanks to Strong Customer Authentication. The digital battle is where the pressure sits today,  and that is where investment in smarter detection makes the biggest difference.

Fraud is also moving back into the physical world

Another worrying trend is the comeback of in-person scams. Someone rings the doorbell — a so-called bank employee, a fake police officer, even a pretend technician from the water company — and they already know the victim's name, address and personal details. The conversation can stretch out for hours, with the victim kept on the spot and gently steered away from calling anyone who could confirm what is really going on. It is a clear reminder that fraud does not only happen behind a screen — it can knock right on someone's door.

The ecosystem is getting better at stopping fraud, but fraudsters are getting better at choosing their targets, crafting their stories and exploiting human trust. No single actor can keep up with that alone and the real answer lies in collaboration: banks, payment providers, merchants, regulators and cardholders all pulling in the same direction.

That is exactly why Fraud Scan Day matters. It is a session where insights are shared openly, assumptions are challenged, and the next moves are aligned. And it is also why Worldline keeps investing in both sides of its fraud defence: a powerful detection engine on one hand, and a team of human experts on the other — because that is what it takes to stay one step ahead.

Worldline remains your partner in preventing and detecting fraud — today, and tomorrow.