Fraud Forward

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward! This episode is just me and you, and honestly, that felt right. Fraud Forward has always been about real conversations, but every once in a while, I think it matters to pause, zoom out, and talk peer to peer about where we’ve been, what I’ve been building, and where this work is going next. No guests. No panel. No polished back-and-forth. Just a real check-in on fraud prevention in banking and the decisions that are shaping what comes next.This episode matters because the questions in front of us are getting bigger, not smaller. We are no longer just talking about fraud trends in isolation. We are talking about AI in banking, payment authorization, customer dispute resolution in banks, real-time decisioning, and the governance problems sitting underneath all of it. If you work in fraud, risk, payments, compliance, or digital banking, you already know this is not a future-state conversation. It is here now.And that is really the core of this episode. Fraud prevention in banking is no longer just about identifying bad activity after the fact. It is about whether institutions can make better decisions earlier, with better context, better governance, and better alignment across teams. That is the shift. That is what I have been hearing in conference hallways, seeing in operator conversations, and building toward behind the scenes.I also wanted to make this episode personal because that matters too. I have sat in the practitioner seat. I know what it feels like to defend fraud losses in a boardroom, to get asked how your institution compares to peers, to explain why a rule fired, and to carry the pressure of making the right call with incomplete information. So when I talk about AI agents in banking, banking fraud detection, or responsible AI in banking, I am not talking from a distance. I am talking from the perspective of somebody who knows what it feels like when the operational reality hits the fraud desk first.Here is what that shift means in practice:We need to stop treating fraud as only a detection problem and start treating it as a governance and decisioning problem.We need better ways to evaluate customer authorization fraud, disputes, and real-time transaction risk before losses harden.We need clearer operator-level benchmarking so banks and credit unions can advocate for resources with facts, not guesswork.We need stronger collaboration across fraud, compliance, product, operations, and leadership because no one team can solve this alone.What you’ll hear in this episode:A look back at the biggest themes from recent Fraud Forward conversations, including AI, KYC, payment fraud, and systems-level risk.What I have been building behind the scenes to support fraud fighters with clearer signals, faster context, and more practical guidance.Why benchmarking has become one of the most important gaps to solve for community banks and credit unions.What I am seeing across conferences, operator conversations, and industry events right now.My take on why scams, chargebacks, first-party fraud, and regulation are all colliding in ways the industry can no longer ignore.You should listen to this episode if you:Work in fraud prevention in banking and need a clearer view of where the industry is headingWant a peer-level perspective on AI in banking, governance, and transaction riskAre trying to connect fraud operations to executive conversations about budget, staffing, and strategyNeed stronger language and better framing around customer dispute resolution in banks and customer authorization fraudCare about building fraud programs that are more proactive, more defensible, and more useful to the institutionIf you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps with getting the word out.

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