Fraud Forward

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward!This episode picks right back up in one of the most important places this conversation could go: what happens after we move past the shiny AI headlines and start talking about control, governance, disputes, and real accountability inside financial services.Because that is the real conversation around agentic banking.Not just whether AI in banking is possible.Not just whether customers will use it.But whether banks are ready to govern it responsibly when AI agents in banking start influencing payments, authorization, disputes, and customer trust.What I really appreciated about this part of the conversation is that we did not stay at the hype layer. We got into what agentic payments actually require if institutions want to use them safely. We talked about AI governance in banking, AI transaction monitoring, banking compliance and AI, and what it means to preserve trust when AI banking transactions start happening closer to the customer.And that matters.Because if agentic banking is going to become part of the future of financial services AI, then we have to build it with intention. We have to build it with controls. And we have to make sure trust infrastructure in banking grows with the technology instead of getting left behind by it.What you’ll hear in this episodeHow agentic banking can solve real customer friction in ways traditional digital banking tools often cannotWhy AI agents in banking create new questions around governance, accountability, and controlHow AI payment authorization, OTP checks, and layered safeguards can help make AI banking transactions saferWhy banking compliance and AI need stronger context sharing, better auditability, and clearer ownershipHow AI transaction monitoring may need to evolve from reviewing transactions alone to reviewing prompts, instructions, and agent-led behaviorWhy banking dispute resolution becomes more complex when a customer authorizes an AI agent instead of initiating every action directlyHow community bank innovation and regional bank innovation can benefit from agentic banking without giving up controlYou should listen to this episode ifYou work in fraud, compliance, payments, risk, digital banking, or bank operations You are trying to understand how agentic banking may affect governance and customer trustYou are evaluating AI in banking beyond chatbot functionalityYou care about banking fraud prevention, AI fraud prevention, and safer banking with AIYou want a more practical conversation about how AI-powered banking actually works inside real institutionsYou are asking how banks can modernize customer experience without creating new gaps in controlIf you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Tyllen Bicakcic, co-founder of Payment AI who advises banks on agentic banking and payments infrastructure. He explains what agentic banking means and why AI that can act on accounts raises intent and authorization questions. They explore real use cases, how transaction monitoring must evolve, trust and compliance challenges, and vendor controls for safer AI-driven payments.

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:Before a payment startsDuring payment initiationAfter the funds are sentBecause 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 episodeWhy payments fraud prevention needs to begin long before the payment railHow institutions often confuse rail risk with customer compromiseWhere RTP fraud prevention differs from ACH fraud recovery and wire fraud recoveryWhich payment initiation fraud controls exist in real-time payments that many teams overlookHow indemnity and recovery work in the RTP environmentWhy real time decisioning matters more than relying on investigation after the factWhere firms are overbuilt on detection but underprepared on preventionWhy collaboration across institutions still mattersWhat fraud leaders should be planning for as payment lifecycle fraud evolves in 2026You should listen to this episode if youLead fraud, risk, payments, or operations at a financial institutionAre reviewing RTP fraud prevention or strengthening instant payments fraud controlsWant to improve fraud prevention before payment initiationNeed a better approach to post payment fraud recoveryAre building a stronger financial institution fraud strategyWant practical insight from The Clearing House perspectiveIf this episode gave you something useful, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another fraud fighter. It helps more people find the show and strengthens the community.

Ted Josephson, VP of Bank Fraud & Credit Strategy at Synchrony Financial, is an experienced enterprise fraud leader advising on strategy and AI. He discusses protecting time for long‑term planning, spotting true fraud shifts versus noise, where AI actually adds operational value, which decisions need human empathy, and the rising risks of agentic commerce and casual friendly fraud.

Ted Josephson, VP of Bank Fraud and Credit Strategy at Synchrony Financial, is an experienced fraud and credit leader who builds enterprise fraud programs. He discusses shifting from investigator to strategic leader. He explores how fraud and credit must align, reframing controls as protection, leading at scale, staying tied to the frontline, and balancing speed with governance.

Jared Gruenberg, a fraud investigator who documents LinkedIn recruiting scams, walks through how fake job posts and quick screening emails harvest operational intelligence. He outlines the telltale signs of impersonated companies. Short, urgent conversations reveal how attackers map industry controls and why overwhelmed teams are especially at risk.

Ari Redbord, former federal prosecutor and Treasury official now leading policy at TRM Labs, discusses how financial crime prevention must adapt as crypto, TradFi, and AI-driven scams converge. He explains operational public-private partnerships, real-time disruption networks like Beacon, blockchain transparency’s investigative edge, and why a Day One mindset beats complacency.

Know your customer (KYC) was never designed to be fraud control, yet fraud programs across the industry treat it like one. In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham sits down with Steve Lenderman, Head of Fraud Prevention at iSolve, for a necessary conversation about what KYC actually does, what it can't do, and why that distinction matters more than ever.Steve and Hailey challenge the assumption that passing KYC means an identity is safe to trust. They explore why every fraud eventually passes KYC, how synthetic identities exploit static verification, and what AI has revealed about the limitations of one-time checks. From the gap between identity existence and identity ownership to the behavioral signals that matter after onboarding, this episode reframes KYC as a starting point, not a solution. The highlights:Why every fraud eventually passes KYCThe gap between identity existence and identity ownershipBehavioral signals that matter after onboardingWhy AI didn't break KYC, rather how it just exposed what was already brokenGuest lineup:Steve Lenderman: Head of Fraud Prevention at iSolveHailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Agentic commerce sounds futuristic, until it starts hitting your auth flows, your dispute queues, and your monitoring pipelines.In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham sits down with Chen Zamir, Head of Fraud Strategy at Sardine and Founder of Native Risk, to unpack what happens when AI agents don’t just recommend, they act. They browse, click, checkout, retry, and optimize at machine speed, sometimes with no human in the loop.Hailey and Chen break down the two flavors of agentic commerce (API/MCP-based vs. in-browser agents), then get direct about the fraud pressure that follows any new payment-adjacent product. They dig into the first typologies likely to spike, why “secure protocols” won’t solve the real problems, and the OTP timing trap that makes step-up friction feel irrelevant when the customer is asleep, offline, or busy on purpose.They also cover the downstream damage teams aren’t modeling yet: rising abandonment, risk scores inflated by failed challenges, messier proof of intent, and a stack that struggles to separate agentic flows from everything else. The core takeaway is simple: fraud teams need to identify, route, and manage agent-driven transactions as a distinct channel before the ecosystem forces the issue.Guest lineup:Chen Zamir: Head of Fraud Strategy at Sardine, founder of NativeRiskHailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at Sardine

Fraud programs often measure what is easiest, not what’s most important. In this episode of Fraud Forward, host Hailey Windham welcomes back Frank McKenna for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about the realities fraud leaders are facing today.Frank and Hailey dig into where fraud hides in plain sight, why so many losses are misclassified as credit risk, and how institutions consistently overreact to trends while underinvesting in the fraud already hitting their balance sheets. They explore the role AI is truly playing in fraud today, where it adds value, where it falls short, and why humans must remain firmly in the loop.From loan fraud and credit washing to insider threats, identity overinvestment, and the long-term impact of bad fraud decisions on customers and employees, this episode challenges comfortable assumptions and legacy thinking. It is a candid discussion about what fraud teams need to stop doing, what they need to do differently, and how fraud is becoming an existential issue for financial institutions.Guest lineup:Frank McKenna: Chief Fraud Strategist, Co-Founder at Point PredictiveHailey Windham: Host of Fraud Forward and Community Banking Lead at SardineLinks:Frank on FraudNo Brakes, No Limits. Our Fraud Predictions For 2026 - Frank on Fraud