Payment Fraud Index: Australia 2026

Of course, this number only reflects the Aussies who are aware of a fraud attempt. It doesn't account for the many individuals or employees who may have been targeted (or are being targeted right now) but don't realise it. After all, we've seen scammers spend months patiently building relationships with employees while posing as vendors or other trusted contacts.

Exposure to fraud is widespread, but actual financial loss affects a meaningful share of the population. In a business context, a single successful payment redirection can far exceed the losses captured in consumer fraud data.

Risk perception is rising faster than fraud reporting volumes, which suggests Australians are seeing more fraud attempts even where losses are not yet materialising.

This is a structural risk. Where leadership underestimates the sophistication of current fraud methods, investment in detection and verification controls tends to lag the threat. Even the perception of an awareness gap can be a risk, with employees less likely to question anomalous or urgent payment requests.

Three in four employees say they wouldn't feel comfortable challenging a payment instruction from a senior colleague, even if it appeared suspicious. This is the precise dynamic that executive impersonation and business email compromise tactics aim to exploit.

Time pressure is a primary enabler of payment fraud. Fraudulent payment requests are frequently accompanied by urgency framing, and one-third of Australian employees already report feeling that pressure as a baseline condition.

AI is removing the low-quality signals that previously made fraudulent payment requests identifiable: poor grammar, unfamiliar formatting and implausible sender details. Nine in ten Australians already feel this shift.

Concern about AI-assisted fraud is now mainstream across the Australian workforce, not confined to security professionals. Finance teams are operating in an environment where their colleagues are already alert to this risk.

Across Australia, the US and New Zealand, Eftsure verifies supplier bank details before payment is made — covering a payment volume that reflects the scale of the business payment fraud risk its customers face.

The figure reflects cumulative detections across Eftsure's customer base and illustrates the scale of payment fraud risk that finance teams face without independent verification controls in place.

If the Q1 2026 pace holds across the full year, Eftsure's fraud detection volume will increase by more than 300% year on year. The increase reflects both growth in Eftsure's customer base and a rising volume of fraud attempts reaching finance teams.

Losses are rising even as report volumes fall slightly, which points to higher-value individual incidents rather than a broader increase in attempts.

Payment redirection fraud targets the moment supplier bank details are confirmed, a process gap that verification controls directly address. Losses have risen for the second consecutive year.

Phishing is the most common entry point for payment redirection fraud. A 15.5% year-on-year increase reflects both the volume of attempts and the growing sophistication of the emails involved.

False billing and payment redirection were the most reported scam types by small business, accounting for A$2.0 million of those losses. Small businesses face the same fraud vectors as large enterprises but typically with fewer controls.

The figure, cited by INTERPOL from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, represents the broadest available estimate of the total cost of financial fraud worldwide. It provides context for the scale of the problem that regional figures like Australia's A$2.18 billion sit within.

The surge in INTERPOL alerts reflects accelerating cross-border fraud activity. Payment fraud increasingly operates across jurisdictions, making domestic controls insufficient on their own.

The World Economic Forum figure, cited by INTERPOL, confirms that rising fraud is not an Australian or regional phenomenon. Finance teams in every market are reporting the same pressure.

INTERPOL's assessment identifies AI as a force multiplier for fraud operators, not just a tool for generating convincing content. The profitability gap between AI-enhanced and traditional fraud is the key driver behind the rapid adoption of AI by fraud networks.