BOSTON–With the difference in the rates of fraud quite stark, financial institutions must raise awareness of real-time payments’ strong fraud prevention tools to encourage broader adoption, according to new research from PYMNTS Intelligence.
“Faster payments are gaining traction in the United States, but fear of fraud continues to hold banks back,” PYMNTS said. “Many institutions limit participation in real-time rails such as the RTP network and the FedNow Service to receive-only functionality, bottlenecking adoption despite evidence that fraud is far less common than on traditional payment systems.”
Fraud Concerns Persist
According to the PYMNTS analysis, fraud remains a central fear restricting instant payments. In a survey by RedCompass Labs, 85% of U.S. payment professionals said they expect fraud to increase as real-time transactions grow. At the largest banks, 95% expressed concern, with half predicting a sharp rise. Fraud ranked as the fourth-most-cited barrier to adoption in 2025, up from ninth place the prior year, the report stated.
Specifically, PYMNTS said the 2025 Faster Payments Barometer found that account takeover fraud leads banks’ concerns, cited by 35%, followed by authorized push payment scams at 30%. Other risks such as synthetic identity or invoice fraud drew less urgency. Despite these fears, most institutions report fraud impact from real-time rails as “slight” or “moderate,” and only 3% describe it as significant, PYMNTS added.
Fraud Rare on Instant Rails
“The facts tell a different story,” according to the PYMNTS analysis. “Fraud rates on real-time rails are significantly lower than checks, wires or ACH. The 2025 Association for Financial Professionals survey reported that 63% of firms encountered check fraud in 2024, compared with just 2% reporting fraud on RTP or FedNow. The Clearing House said fraud on RTP is a fraction of a percentage point. In April, only 123 cases were reported out of 35 million transactions.”
By comparison, PYMNTS noted that ACH debits and wire transfers accounted for attempted or actual fraud rates of 38% and 30%, respectively. Despite widespread check fraud—often tied to stolen mail—three-quarters of firms still plan to keep using checks over the next two years, the report added.
Tools Gain Support
The survey found banks broadly support targeted fraud defenses. Nearly all institutions, 96%, back the introduction of a Confirmation of Payee system, which verifies recipient information before payment, PYMNTS reported adding, the United Kingdom has already cut authorized push payment fraud by 60% under its CoP mandate.
Other top measures include:
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning (40%)
- Real-time detection (39%)
- Multifactor authentication (35%)
- Greater data sharing among banks (32%)
“Larger institutions are increasingly confident AI can improve financial crime detection, with support rising to 54% this year from 31% last year,” the report stated.
PYMNTS noted that both The Clearing House and the Federal Reserve are reinforcing fraud defenses on their networks. Recent initiatives include real-time monitoring, collaborative data exchange and the Fed’s ScamClassifier model, designed to track scam types and patterns, it said.
Closing the Gap
According to PYMNTS, industry experts argue that clinging to myths—such as “faster payments equal faster fraud”—is slowing progress.
“While risk will never disappear, today’s instant rails are more secure than legacy systems. Broader adoption now depends on better communication, collaboration and universal deployment of tools that are already working,” PYMNTS said.
