Payments fraud prevention across the lifecycle: Before, during, and after the money moves

What is up fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward!

This is one of those conversations every fraud, risk, payments, and operations leader should hear.

We spend a lot of time talking about fraud losses, scam trends, and faster payments. What we do not always unpack is where the real breakdown happens in the payment journey. Does it start at onboarding? Does it show up in authentication? Is speed the issue? Is recovery the problem? Or are institutions still misreading what payment controls are actually designed to do?

In this episode, I sit down with Kyle Caldwell from The Clearing House to unpack payments fraud prevention the way teams actually experience it in the real world:

1. Before a payment starts
2. During payment initiation
3. After the funds are sent

Because once the money moves, everything changes.

That is the core message of this episode. Payments fraud prevention is not only about the rail. It is about the full lifecycle.

Kyle brings a practical perspective to one of the biggest myths in our space. Faster payments are not automatically the cause of more fraud. In many cases, the payment itself is just the final stage of a much earlier breakdown involving identity, compromise, or weak controls.

If you work in community banking fraud prevention, credit union fraud prevention, or broader fraud operations strategy, this episode gives you a more useful way to think about risk, controls, and response in a real-time environment.

What you’ll hear in this episode

1. Why payments fraud prevention needs to begin long before the payment rail
2. How institutions often confuse rail risk with customer compromise
3. Where RTP fraud prevention differs from ACH fraud recovery and wire fraud recovery
4. Which payment initiation fraud controls exist in real-time payments that many teams overlook
5. How indemnity and recovery work in the RTP environment
6. Why real time decisioning matters more than relying on investigation after the fact
7. Where firms are overbuilt on detection but underprepared on prevention
8. Why collaboration across institutions still matters
9. What fraud leaders should be planning for as payment lifecycle fraud evolves in 2026

You should listen to this episode if you

1. Lead fraud, risk, payments, or operations at a financial institution
2. Are reviewing RTP fraud prevention or strengthening instant payments fraud controls
3. Want to improve fraud prevention before payment initiation
4. Need a better approach to post payment fraud recovery
5. Are building a stronger financial institution fraud strategy
6. Want practical insight from The Clearing House perspective

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