Fraud has entered a new era where the primary battleground is identity. Trends illustrate a paradox facing organisations: Although the overall rate of suspected digital fraud declined to 3.8% in 2025, account takeover, account creation fraud, consumer reported scams and data breach severity accelerated last year. Far from a contradiction, it reflects adversaries shifting away from easily detectable fraud towards sophisticated attacks that bypass traditional identity verification and authentication controls.

This report is intended to provide fraud, risk, identity and authentication leaders with current information to evaluate their fraud prevention tactics in the context of global fraud trends and adjust their fraud prevention strategies with confidence. It blends two sources of intelligence: insights from a global survey of consumers in 18 countries and regions, and those gained from billions of transactions within the proprietary TransUnion® global intelligence network. Each lens tells a different part of the story, and together they offer a holistic view of today’s fast-changing threat landscape.

Key fraud trends include:

Identity-based fraud impacts consumer trust — and wallets

26% of consumers said they lost money from digital fraud in the last year.

77% of consumers cited confidence that their personal data is secure as the most important feature when choosing whom to transact with online.

Fraud risk persists at every stage of the consumer lifecycle

8.3% of digital account creation attempts were suspected of being fraudulent in 2025, making it the highest risk stage across the consumer lifecycle.

37% increase in the account takeover (ATO) suspected digital fraud rate from 2024 to 2025.

Compromised identities increase risk of sophisticated fraud attacks

33% of consumers who reported being targeted by digital fraud said they experienced a phishing attack, the most of any scheme.

47% increase in US data breach volume from 2024 to 2025.

UK Trends within the report reveal (page 34 of the report):

The median consumer-reported fraud loss among those who said they lost money to digital fraud in the past year was £ 1,205.

Among UK respondents who reported losing money to digital fraud in the past year, phishing was the most common scheme, accounting for 26% of losses. This was followed by stolen credit cards or fraudulent charges, which made up 23%.

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