Reflections From Vienna: What I Learned at the UN Global Fraud Summit
On 16-17 March, I had the privilege of representing TransUnion® at the inaugural United Nations Global Fraud Summit in Vienna — an event that felt unlike anything our industry has seen before. With around 1,400 delegates representing more than 125 countries, the scale alone signaled how seriously the world is now treating fraud. What stood out was the level of seniority gathered in the room: government ministers, law enforcement leaders, global NGOs, major technology players and industry experts. As of 19 March 2026, 116 organisations and governments had committed to one of the key target outcomes of the summit: The Global Public-Private Partnership Framework against Fraud.
Fraud has become the “security issue of our day”
One takeaway hit from the start of Lord Hanson’s (UK Minister for Fraud) opening remarks, which included reference that fraud is no longer seen as a niche financial crime. Ten years ago, fraud would not have appeared alongside drug trafficking, human trafficking or money laundering; today, it sits right next to them. And with global losses now estimated at $442B (according to Global Anti-Scam Alliance) — greater than the GDP of 180 UN member states — that shift in recognition suddenly feels overdue. That number alone is striking, but even more so is the realisation these figures understate the economic, human and trust costs. They don’t capture the operational costs of prevention, emotional toll on victims or financial strain on organisations working to keep their customers safe.
The rise of “poly-criminality”
One theme came up again and again: merging cybercrime, fraud and financial crime into a single, fluid ecosystem. Criminal groups are no longer specialising — they’re diversifying. Human trafficking groups are running cybercrime operations. A scam centre that starts with romance scams quickly branches into investment fraud. Fraud-as-a-service providers offer ready-made synthetic ID kits, with deep-fake technology becoming a standard part of the toolkit. This blend of tactics is creating a kind of “poly-criminality,” where one type of crime seamlessly feeds another. The pace and elasticity of these networks were impossible to ignore.
Speed is our new frenemy
A phrase that stuck with me was “the immediate economy.” Faster payments have been a huge win for consumers and competition — but they’ve also become accelerants for fraud. Barriers to entry are lower (the “skill-floor” for fraudsters has reduced), opportunities for expansion are higher (the “ceiling room” to achieve fraud at scale has increased) and the level of automation now available makes it easier than ever for criminals to attack at volume. Agentic AI (such as “companion bots” being used within romance fraud) will only accelerate this.
Education and the knowledge–action gap
Another recurring challenge is public awareness. There are multiple initiatives (including Stop.Think.Fraud; Take 5; ReportFraud) encouraging people to “stay vigilant,” yet fraud numbers keep rising: 44% of all reported crime in England and Wales is fraud-related. The issue isn’t necessarily people lack knowledge — it is that messages don’t connect at the right moment or in the right way. The “knowledge–action gap” is real, highlighting the need for awareness campaigns to become more relevant, timely and human.
It takes a network to defeat a network
If there was a single unifying thread across the two days, it was this: Shared responsibility is no longer enough; we need to move toward shared accountability. Fraudsters operate as networks — agile, distributed and collaborative. We must respond in the same way — which includes governments, regulators, law enforcement, banks, telcos, BigTech and partners like TransUnion. Even more challenging, we need to find ways to bring unwilling or hesitant participants into the fold — or mitigate the dangers they potentially represent (for example, a reference made to a messaging platform that saw a 380% increase in usage following the introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act).
Leaving Vienna
As I left the Summit, I felt a mix of realism and motivation. The problem is vast, evolving and deeply connected to wider social and economic forces. But the significant collaboration I saw in Vienna felt genuine — and long overdue. Fraud is becoming the defining security challenge of our time. Seeing this global ecosystem come together gave me confidence we’re finally beginning to match the scale of the threat with the scale of our response.
Fraud now accounts for 45% of all crime in England and Wales, with 4.15 million incidents recorded in the last year.1 As fraudsters adopt AI to generate false documents, deepfakes, cloned voices and synthetic identities, traditional checks simply can’t keep up.
Identity data is being manipulated at scale — enabling fraudsters to impersonate real people, bypass weak verification steps and exploit vulnerabilities across every stage of the customer journey. Purely traditional KYC is no longer enough.
Read more in our guide, Verifying Digital Identities, which explores how organisations can strengthen identity assurance and outsmart modern fraud.
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