244% surge in digital document forgeries

As cybercriminals continue to adapt their techniques to find new ways through defences, AI-assisted fraud is growing increasingly sophisticated and frequent, according to the Entrust Cybersecurity Institute’s 2025 Identity Fraud Report. The findings reveal a deepfake attempt occurred every five minutes in 2024, while digital document forgeries increased 244% year-over-year.

Digital identity verification is a vital part of the onboarding process and is essential for preventing fraud and financial crime. This first moment of interaction provides organisations with the opportunity to establish trust in an individual’s identity from day one and provides the basis for secure, efficient authentication at later moments of the customer lifecycle. The report identifies digital document manipulation and deepfakes as the biggest growing threats going into 2025.

For the first time, digital document forgery surpassed physical counterfeits as the leading method of fraud in 2024, with digital forgeries accounting for 57% of all document fraud. This marks a 244% increase from 2023 and a staggering 1,600% surge since 2021, when almost all fraudulent documents were physical counterfeits. With the rise in AI-assisted fraud, bad actors are now able to leverage more sophisticated attacks on documents, particularly national ID cards (40.8% of attacks globally). Threat actors are taking advantage of “as-a-service” platforms for phishing, fraud, and ransomware that facilitate knowledge sharing of “best practices” and the use of generative AI (GenAI) tools to create sophisticated digital forgery and injection attacks.

The report identifies AI-assisted deepfakes as an area of particular concern for global organisations, as basic fraud tactics that are relatively easy to discern, like phishing, are quickly giving way to hyper-realistic AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic identities. The rise in face-swap apps and GenAI tools has allowed fraudsters to perform and scale increasingly believable biometric fraud attacks. The capacity for malicious usage is widespread and includes fraudulent account openings, account takeovers, phishing scams, and misinformation campaigns. Deepfake attempts occurred at a rate of one every five minutes in 2024.

The top three most targeted industries in 2024 were all related to financial services, with cryptocurrency seeing almost double the number of fraud attempts compared to any other industry (9.5%), followed by lending and mortgages (5.4%), and traditional banks (5.3%). Crypto platforms saw the highest rate of fraudulent activity attempts, which have risen 50% year-over-year, from 6.4% in 2023 to 9.5% in 2024. This could be due to crypto reaching an all-time price high in 2024, making it very attractive to fraudsters. At the same time, traditional banks experienced a 13% increase from last year in fraudulent onboarding attempts, which happened as inflation rates were also high, leading to a rise in lending and mortgage scams.

 

Modulr acquires AP automation firm Nook

Embedded payments platform Modulr has announced its acquisition of Nook, a disruptor in accounts payable (AP) automation. Both companies share a mission to address inefficiencies, remove manual steps and enhance the security of business payments.

These are significant concerns, as highlighted by Modulr’s survey of 250 accounting practices, which revealed that nearly half (45%) of respondents spend over three hours per week on manual data entry.

Today’s businesses often have no choice but to use multiple platforms to manage their financial operations, from paying supplier invoices to processing payroll, managing treasury, and accessing finance. For instance, 60% of large companies use at least five separate systems just for accounts payable.

Modulr is bringing Nook’s functionality to its established network of thousands of accountants and businesses already using its payment products. Security and efficiency remain central to both platforms, with features such as Confirmation of Payee (CoP) to validate account details in real-time, helping prevent fraud across payment processes.

Nook’s platform offers full invoice lifecycle management from receipt through approval to payment and reconciliation with accounting software. Tools such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enhanced with AI ensures precise line-item capture of each invoice, while customisable approval workflows and seamless accountant collaboration are designed to remove manual steps and save time.

 

Goldman Sachs to spin-out DLT platform, Tradeweb first strategic partner

Goldman Sachs intends to explore strategic opportunities to spin-out its wholly-owned technology platform, GS DAP from its Digital Assets business, to ultimately become an industry-owned distributed technology solution, subject to regulatory approvals. In tandem with the announcement, Goldman Sachs has also introduced a collaboration with strategic industry partners to underscore a shared commitment to and vision for using distributed ledger technology across financial markets.

GS DAP is designed to meet the needs of market participants in digital capital markets. Developed as a part of Goldman Sachs’ Digital Assets business, the potential spin-out of the platform advances a broader vision to create a distributed ecosystem that allows participants to interoperate seamlessly, efficiently, and at scale. Establishing a new, standalone company independent of Goldman Sachs and its Digital Assets business will help to provide the future runway for digital financial services by ensuring a fit-for-purpose, long-term solution.

“We view permissioned distributed technologies as the next structural change to financial markets and are already demonstrating the meaningfulness of the technology’s perceived benefits”, said Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs. “Delivering a distributed technology solution to a wide cross-section of financial market participants has the potential to redefine market connectivity, infrastructure composability, and to deliver a new suite of commercial opportunities for the buy- and sell-side.”

The firm also announced its first strategic partner for the platform. Tradeweb will work with Goldman Sachs to include their trading and liquidity capabilities across the fixed income spectrum in an effort to bring new commercial use cases to GS DAP.

“Our goal is to create and utilise a solution that ushers in a new wave of access, liquidity, and interoperability for the digital financial markets, introducing new capabilities to the marketplace that advance market structure and connectivity,” added Chris Bruner, Chief Product Officer at Tradeweb.

 

Buy-side traders prioritise pricing and quality of coverage when evaluating FX dealers

Buy-side FX traders are increasingly focused on achieving best execution, with pricing and quality of coverage emerging as the top attributes when evaluating their FX dealers. Based on interviews with buy-side FX traders globally, a recent Coalition Greenwich study found that over 40% of respondents cited uncompetitive pricing as the primary reason to reduce their trade flow to a dealer, while more than 20% highlighted the importance of quality of sales and relationship management.

“The buy side is becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach to FX trading, and dealers must adapt to meet their evolving needs,” said Stephen Bruel, Senior Analyst on the Market Structure & Technology team at Coalition Greenwich. “Pricing and quality of coverage are now the key drivers of a dealer’s success, and those who fail to deliver on these fronts risk losing business to their competitors.”

The Coalition Greenwich study also found that multidealer platforms (MDPs) are increasingly popular among buy-side traders, with 34% of respondents expecting to increase their use of MDPs in the coming year. Ease of use and workflow integration were cited as key benefits of MDPs, with 48% of respondents highlighting the importance of best execution and pricing.

“MDPs offer a range of benefits, including ease of use, workflow integration and best execution,” added Bruel. “They are an attractive option for buy-side traders who want to optimise their trading and achieve best execution.”

The study also found that single-dealer platforms (SDPs) will continue to play a role in the FX trading ecosystem, particularly for complex trades and structures. However, MDPs are likely to remain the preferred choice for routine trades and spot execution.

 

Corpay extends partnership with World Aquatics

Corpay’s Cross-Border business has entered into a multi-year agreement to extend their collaboration with World Aquatics as their Official FX Payments Supplier.

The firm has provided a range of corporate FX payments solutions for World Aquatics, the global governing body of six aquatic disciplines – Swimming, Water Polo, Diving, High Diving, Artistic Swimming and Open Water Swimming – since 2022. Under this multi-year extension, World Aquatics, along with the global aquatics’ community, event hosts and World Aquatics partners will continue to have access to Corpay Cross-Border’s global payments and currency risk management solutions.

“With an expanding calendar of international events and an ever-growing global presence, this continued collaboration will further streamline our financial operations,” commented Brent Nowicki, World Aquatics Executive Director.