Bringing Industry Leaders Together to Combat the Next Generation of Fraud

As fraud, scams, mule activity, account takeover, and financial crime continue to evolve across the region, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: collaboration is no longer optional.

Over the past week, Level Five hosted two private executive gatherings in Southeast Asia—a Fraud Leadership Dinner in Kuala Lumpur and a Fraud & Financial Crime Luncheon in Singapore. These sessions were designed to bring together senior leaders across banking, payments, fintech, fraud, risk, compliance, and cybersecurity for candid conversations about the challenges shaping our industry.

Unlike traditional conferences, these gatherings focused on peer-to-peer dialogue. The goal was simple: create an environment where practitioners could openly discuss emerging threats, operational challenges, regulatory developments, and the strategies being deployed to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated fraud attacks.

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Key Themes Discussed

Several common themes emerged across both events:

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1. The Industrialization of Fraud

Fraud has become highly organized and operationalized. Criminal networks are leveraging automation, social engineering, synthetic identities, mule networks, and increasingly sophisticated attack techniques to scale their activities across multiple markets.

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2. The Growing Mule Account Challenge

Financial institutions continue to face increasing pressure from mule activity, particularly as scammers become more effective at recruiting and managing mule networks. Detecting and disrupting these networks remains a significant challenge for the industry.

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3. Account Takeover and Identity Risks

As digital channels continue to grow, organizations are seeing new forms of account takeover attacks that bypass traditional controls. The discussion highlighted the need for stronger device intelligence, behavioral analytics, and identity-based risk assessment.

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4. Collaboration Across the Ecosystem

One of the strongest messages from both events was the importance of information sharing and collaboration between financial institutions, payment providers, technology partners, and regulators. Fraudsters collaborate extensively; defenders must do the same.

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5. Industry Participation

We were pleased to welcome leaders from organizations including AEON, Wise, Western Union, Ryt Bank, Trust Bank, Standard Chartered, and other institutions across the region.

The quality of the discussions reinforced the value of creating smaller, trusted forums where industry peers can exchange experiences and learn from one another's successes and challenges.

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Looking Ahead

The positive response to both gatherings confirmed that there is strong demand for more opportunities for senior fraud, risk, compliance, cybersecurity, and financial crime professionals to connect.

As fraud threats continue to evolve, so must the conversations around them.

We are already planning our next executive forums and look forward to expanding participation across more banks, payment providers, fintechs, and financial institutions throughout the region.

A sincere thank you to everyone who joined us, contributed their perspectives, and helped make these sessions a success. The conversations may have started around the dinner table, but the impact and collaboration will continue long after the events concluded.

Together, we can build a stronger, more resilient financial ecosystem across Southeast Asia.

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