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Payment Fraud Index: Singapore 2026

Payment Fraud Index: Singapore 2026

Singapore lost S$913.1 million to scams and cybercrime in 2025, down 17.9% from S$1,112.4 million in 2024, according to the Singapore Police Force. The decline masks a rising cost per incident: the median loss per case actually increased to S$1,644, and business email compromise remained among the top five scam types by total dollar loss. The exposure isn't theoretical — in April 2026, a Singapore-based CEO authorised US$36.3 million in transfers over four days after a fake WhatsApp call from his company's "chairman." Singapore's Anti-Scam Command recovered US$9.7 million; the remaining US$26.5 million had already moved offshore. Read the full case.

The Payment Fraud Index compiles verified payment fraud statistics for Singapore from authoritative sources including the Singapore Police Force and INTERPOL. It is updated annually and covers the scale of scam and cybercrime losses, how Singapore's verification gap exposes businesses differently to consumers, and how Eftsure's own detection data compares.

Eftsure's payment fraud statistics: Singapore 2026

Eftsure protects S$348.3 billion (US$270 billion) in business payments annually.

Across Singapore, the US, Australia 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.

Source: Eftsure Fraud Detection Data 2026

Eftsure has flagged S$10.1 billion+ (US$7.8 billion+) in potential fraudulent payments to date.

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.

Source: Eftsure Fraud Detection Data 2026

Eftsure is on track to detect and stop four times the volume of fraud in 2026 that it did across all of 2025, based on Q1 2026 pace.

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.

Source: Eftsure Fraud Detection Data 2026

SPF Annual Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025: key findings

Singapore lost S$913.1 million to scams and cybercrime in 2025.

The decline from the prior year followed stepped-up enforcement and platform accountability measures rather than a fall in attempts against businesses.

Source: SPF 2026

Singapore's 2024 scam and cybercrime losses totalled S$1,112.4 million.

The comparison marks 2025 as the first year in the current reporting series where both case counts and total losses fell together.

Source: SPF 2026

Singapore recorded 41,974 scam and cybercrime cases in 2025, down from 55,810 in 2024.

Case volume fell faster than the underlying threat, since sophistication and average loss per incident both continued to climb.

Source: SPF 2026

Scams accounted for 37,308 of Singapore's 2025 cases, or 88.9% of the total.

This split shows scams proper driving the large majority of Singapore's cybercrime caseload, ahead of every other category combined.

Source: SPF 2026

The median loss per scam case in Singapore rose to S$1,644 in 2025, up from S$1,389 in 2024.

Individual incidents are costing victims more even as the total number of reported cases falls, pointing to increasingly targeted attacks.

Source: SPF 2026

Cryptocurrency-related scams accounted for around 20% of Singapore's total losses in 2025.

A fifth of all losses moving through crypto rails adds a recovery challenge on top of the underlying fraud itself.

Source: SPF 2026

81.8% of Singapore's 2025 scam cases involved victims transferring funds themselves, rather than accounts being taken over.

Social engineering, not system compromise, drove the large majority of losses — a pattern technical account security alone cannot close.

Source: SPF 2026

Singapore's Anti-Scam Command recovered approximately S$140.5 million in scam proceeds in 2025.

That recovery figure sits well below total losses, underlining why stopping a payment before it moves matters more than recovering it afterward.

Source: SPF 2026

Global context: INTERPOL Financial Fraud Threat Assessment 2026

Estimated global financial fraud losses reached US$442 billion in 2025.

The scale puts fraud among the largest categories of global economic crime, ahead of many forms of conventional theft.

Source: INTERPOL 2026

INTERPOL fraud-related Notices and Diffusions increased 54% year on year between 2024 and 2025.

The rise in cross-border alerts signals fraud networks increasingly operating across national jurisdictions rather than within a single country.

Source: INTERPOL 2026

77% of business leaders globally reported an increase in fraud over the past year.

The proportion suggests rising fraud exposure is now the norm for enterprises rather than an isolated risk.

Source: INTERPOL 2026

AI-enabled financial fraud schemes are estimated to be 4.5 times more profitable than non-AI fraud tactics.

The profitability gap gives criminal groups a direct financial incentive to keep adopting AI tools faster than defences can adapt.

Source: INTERPOL 2026

Author

Catherine Chipeta

Published

13 Aug 2026

Sources
Eftsure Fraud Detection Data 2026Eftsure Fraud Detection Data 2026SPF 2026SPF 2026INTERPOL 2026

FAQs

Singapore lost S$913.1 million to scams and cybercrime in 2025, according to the Singapore Police Force. That is down 17.9% from S$1,112.4 million in 2024 — the first year in the current reporting series where both case numbers and losses fell together. The median loss per case still rose to S$1,644, up from S$1,389 the year before, showing individual incidents are becoming more costly even as overall volume declines. Business email compromise remained among the top five scam types by total dollar loss in 2025.

No. Singapore's Shared Responsibility Framework protects personal bank accounts through a waterfall liability model across banks, telcos, and consumers, but it explicitly excludes business accounts. It also excludes authorised payments — transactions the account holder intended to make — which is exactly how business email compromise and invoice redirection scams work. That means BEC and invoice fraud fall outside the consumer safety net twice over: once because the account is a business account, and again because the payment was technically authorised. <a href="/threat/business-email-compromise/">Learn about business email compromise.</a>

No. InvoiceNow is Singapore's phased mandate for structured digital invoicing, rolling out from 2025 through 2031 across different GST-registered business thresholds. It standardises how invoices are issued, transmitted, and processed, which improves efficiency and data consistency. What it does not do is verify the vendor bank account behind a payment, so a fraudulent account substitution can still pass through an InvoiceNow-compliant invoice undetected. <a href="/threat/invoice-fraud/">Learn about invoice fraud.</a>

Significantly, given Singapore's role as a regional trade and treasury hub. PayNow's recipient name-match check and the FAST payment rail both operate in Singapore dollars and apply only to domestic transfers. That verification advantage disappears entirely on cross-border and multi-currency payments — exactly the payments that carry the highest fraud risk for businesses trading internationally. Cross-border transfers also tend to move through correspondent banking relationships with fewer real-time checks than a domestic instant-payment rail. <a href="/international-verifications/">See international vendor verification.</a>