Real-time payments (RTP®) offer unprecedented speed and convenience, but do they come with increased fraud risk?  

A recent webinar, hosted by Corporate One and featuring The Clearing House's Elena Casal, Chief Client Officer, and Kyle Caldwell, VP, Fraud Product Management, tackled this question head-on, separating industry fears from the actual emerging trends. 

For credit union members and staff alike, understanding the reality of fraud in the real-time payments landscape is crucial to ensuring safe, secure transactions. 

The Reality of Fraud vs. Industry Fears 

A key takeaway from the session was the significant gap between widespread industry anxiety and the actual incidence of fraud on established networks like the RTP® network. While the speed of real-time payments might seem to increase risk inherently, the data tells a more nuanced story.  

“The biggest misconception is tying faster payments and faster fraud together,” Casal said.  

“Right now, we see an average ratio of over 100,000 good payments compared to one potential unauthorized fraud,” added Caldwell. “So, .001%. That’s what the data is telling us. Our fraud rates across the network are very, very small.” 

The focus is less on novel fraud schemes unique to the RTP network itself and more on traditional tactics being adapted to the faster payment environment. 

Emerging Trends and Effective Mitigation 

Casal and Caldwell highlighted that fraudsters are leveraging existing weaknesses, primarily targeting the human element rather than system vulnerabilities. The most prevalent emerging trends include: 

• Authorized Push Payment Fraud: This involves tricking legitimate account holders into willingly sending money to a fraudster's account. This remains a primary concern and underscores the need for robust member education.
• Account Takeover: Gaining unauthorized access to a legitimate account to initiate fraudulent transactions.

The good news is that prevention and mitigation strategies are proving effective. Strong identity authentication methods, multi-factor verification, and enhanced data sharing among financial institutions and other organizations are key to combating these threats. Investing internally in staff education is also critical. 

Overall, the emphasis is on proactive measures, data analytics to predict and prevent fraudulent activities, and industry-wide collaboration to ensure the safety and integrity of real-time payment systems for all users. 

Looking Ahead to 2026 

The webinar offered a glimpse into the future as the payments landscape evolves, and the RTP network continues to grow.  

“You’ll start to see new tools and offerings to help financial institutions on their journey of sending disbursements and making it better for their clients, be it business or consumer,” said Casal. “So, stay tuned for that because there will be a lot more coming.”  

You can watch the on-demand version of this webinar here.