A recent report by Trustpair, developed with Kinexys by J.
P.
Morgan, indicates that 71% of U.
S. companies have faced an acceleration of AI-powered fraud attempts over the past year, while 48% continue to rely on manual checks, leading to significant financial losses and operational challenges. The “Fraud in the Cyber Era: 2026 Fraud Trends & Insights” report, based on a survey conducted by Dynata in November 2025 of 250 CFOs and senior finance executives at U.
S. enterprises with annual revenues exceeding $500 million, highlights a significant disconnect. Despite the rapid increase in sophisticated AI-driven attacks, nearly half of these organizations (48%) still primarily use manual verification processes, a decrease from 69% year-over-year. Baptiste Collot, co-founder and CEO of Trustpair, stated, “AI has raised the baseline of fraud. The risk keeps increasing, but internal processes haven’t moved fast enough. Manual callbacks and email checks simply cannot defend against attacks that are generated at scale.” The report found that 47% of finance leaders now consider AI-generated fraud one of their biggest challenges in prevention. Business Email Compromise (BEC) remains the most prevalent fraud channel, impacting 62% of organizations, followed by fake websites (48%) and text message scams (45%). These attacks have led to substantial consequences: one in four companies reported six-figure losses, 45% spent multiple days responding to a single incident, and 17% reported having to terminate employees due to fraud-related mistakes. Trustpair’s analysis points to converging threats, including rising regulatory pressure and faster payment operations, exacerbated by structural weaknesses. Vendor data often remains siloed and is validated sporadically, leading to rapid obsolescence and vulnerabilities. Only 32% of companies continuously or real-time validate vendor bank account details, leaving many exposed between onboarding and payment. The upcoming Nacha requirements in March 2026, mandating upfront account validation, add to existing internal control expectations like SOX compliance. Alarmingly, 45% of surveyed companies are unaware of these forthcoming Nacha rules, and 13% lack any vendor bank-account validation process. Despite these challenges, the research indicates progress in fraud defense modernization. Half of the surveyed companies increased their fraud prevention budgets in 2025, and the adoption of automated account validation tools saw a slight increase from 31% to 34%. Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need for automation and continuous validation to mitigate human error and bolster controls, rather than solely relying on training. Embedding these automated checks into existing finance and procurement workflows is identified as crucial for enhancing security without hindering operational efficiency. Trustpair, established in 2017, provides an account validation platform designed to eliminate vendor payment fraud for large global companies. The company serves over 500 corporate and enterprise customers from its offices in New York City, Paris, and London.
