More than half (55%) of US respondents feel more at risk of financial fraud today than they did 12 months ago, according to Eftsure's 2026 Payment Survey of more than 1,000 American business leaders.
The same research shows a clear appetite for change, with 83% willing to accept extra verification steps (or even delays!) if it reduces fraud risk. Encouragingly, Americans already see the threat, and most say they're ready to work with stronger controls once their organization puts them in place.
Fraud attempts are common and confidence is slipping
Nearly one in four (25%) respondents say they're aware of their organization experiencing a financial fraud attempt in the past 12 months. And, often, those attempts are landing on teams that don't feel fully equipped to deal with them. Almost three in five (59%) say they don't feel fully prepared to spot modern scams, whether they arrive by email, by phone, as an AI-generated message, or as a fraudulent invoice.
Confidence in everyday payment accuracy is also mixed. Nearly two in five (39%) aren't fully confident their organization never pays the same invoice twice, overpays, or sends money to the wrong account. Errors like these don't need a criminal to cause them, but they point to the weakness fraudsters look for: payment details that move through the process without an independent check.
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence features in these concerns, too. Three quarters (76%) of respondents say they're worried about AI-assisted scams such as fake invoices, including 40% who see it as a growing risk and 36% who are very concerned.
The awareness tracks with outside evidence and a fast-evolving threat landscape. Generative tools make it easier to produce an invoice or email that looks right, so judging a request by its appearance carries less weight than it used to.
Vendor bank detail changes remain the moment that tests your controls
When a vendor asks to change their bank account details, 29% of respondents aren't sure what their organization should do before paying. Only 35% say their organization verifies the request by calling the vendor back on a known, independently sourced phone number.
Picture an AP officer who receives an email from a long-standing vendor contact. It references a real invoice, includes updated bank details on familiar letterhead, and asks for the change to apply before this week's payment run. If the officer's only options are to reply to that email or call the number in its signature, the verification runs through the same channel a fraudster may control.
Beyond that moment, protection is thin for many organizations:
- Only 23% of respondents say their organization uses dedicated fraud or account monitoring tools.
- Another 34% rely only on basic protections, 13% rely solely on built-in protections, and 28% don't use any fraud monitoring tools at all.
- Just 27% believe their organization checks for payment fraud continuously, which suggests most rely on checks at set points such as vendor onboarding, even though bank details can change at any time after that.
Third-party exposure adds to the picture. More than two thirds (69%) aren't fully confident their vendors and partners have systems in place to prevent payment fraud and cybercrime, and only 13% feel very confident making payments to businesses overseas. Each of those relationships is a place where a compromised mailbox on the other side can redirect a payment your own team approves in good faith.
Training and culture decide what happens at the approval step
Controls work when people know how to use them and feel able to. Only one third (33%) of respondents say they've received clear and practical training on how to identify and stop payment fraud, and just 40% believe employees are adequately informed about practical tools they can use to avoid scams. More than two thirds (69%) don't fully believe their workplace does enough to educate staff about modern scams and payment fraud.
Process clarity is uneven as well. Only 36% feel very clear about how to report or escalate suspected fraud internally. When the path isn't obvious, a suspicious request is more likely to be processed than paused.
Workplace hierarchy plays a part. Only 31% feel completely comfortable questioning or challenging a payment request from a senior colleague or executive. Executive impersonation scams rely on exactly this hesitation, because an urgent request that appears to come from the CFO or CEO is less likely to be questioned.
At the same time, 72% don't fully believe senior leaders understand how modern payment fraud succeeds or what it would cost the business. Leaders who build that understanding are best placed to tell their teams that questioning a payment request is part of the job, whoever it comes from.
Build verification into every payment change
Data quality is part of the same conversation. Many finance teams are bringing AI into invoice processing and AP workflows to move faster and cut manual effort, and those workflows are only as reliable as the data they draw on. Only 13% of respondents fully trust the accuracy and completeness of the data their workplace AI tools rely on. Verified vendor and payment data gives both people and automated workflows a dependable foundation, and helps finance teams get more value from the AI tools they're adopting.
With most respondents willing to accept extra steps, finance leaders have room to act. Practical starting points include:
- Require an independent callback for every bank detail change, using a phone number from your vendor master file or a previously verified record, never the number in the request.
- Document one escalation path for suspected fraud and make sure every AP team member can describe it.
- State in writing (and from the top) that questioning a payment request from any senior colleague is encouraged and expected.
- Train with real AP scenarios, such as a vendor bank change before a payment run or an urgent executive request, rather than generic phishing modules.
- Verify vendor bank details at the point of payment as well as at onboarding, so a change made months later still gets checked.
- Treat vendor master data as a verified asset, because the people and automated workflows that use it inherit its accuracy.
Stronger payment controls don't have to mean delays or complexity
With 83% of respondents prepared to accept extra verification to reduce fraud risk, finance leaders have the support they need to make stronger controls a standard part of every payment.
But adding more checks doesn't always mean adding more manual work, and it certainly shouldn't require adding yet another disconnected system. The challenge is making sure the same level of trust carries through from vendor onboarding and invoice processing to the final payment.
That's where Eftsure comes in. As an independent layer of payment integrity that works with existing finance systems, Eftsure helps teams verify they're paying the right person or business, and the right amount. By connecting controls across the payment process, organizations can reduce the risk of fraud, errors and duplicate payments without adding unnecessary complexity.
See how Eftsure helps finance teams strengthen payment controls across their existing systems.
About the research: Eftsure's 2026 US Payment Survey is an independent survey of 1,002 Americans, with fieldwork conducted in June 2026.
