Businesses fight identity fraud surge with misplaced confidence, lack of insight

A new report examining identity fraud trends across Europe reveals a disconnect between business confidence and the actual scale of fraudulent activity affecting organizations.

European businesses estimate one in five transactions are fraudulent, with identity fraud and associated prevention costs impacting a whopping 22 percent of their annual revenue. Despite these figures, 74 percent believe they are winning the fight against fraud, even though nearly half (47 percent) do not track fraud consistently.

In short, confidence is high but follow through is lacking, according to the study, conducted by identity verification company Signicat with cybersecurity consultancy Red Goat Cyber Security.

“This research highlights a worrying trend: businesses trust their ability to fight fraud, yet don’t truly understand where or how it’s hurting them,” says Pinar Alpay, Signicat’s chief product and marketing officer.

The research, titled “The Battle in the Dark 2025,” surveyed over 900 fraud decision-makers across nine European countries, covering the payments and fintech, banking, insurance, gaming and automotive sectors.

ID document fraud remains popular

Signicat’s data show that fraud attempts are up 88 percent over the last four years, with identity fraud attempts up 69 percent.

Despite the arrival of threats such as deepfake, “old-school” identity document forgery remained popular across all market verticals. ID fraud accounted for 9.3 percent of all fraud attempts in 2025, according to the company’s data. Account takeover (ATO) and social engineering followed.

ID fraud was most common in banking (45 percent) while the most popular fraud tactic in payments and fintech is ATO (36 percent). The insurance sector’s biggest threat is application fraud while synthetic ID fraud is the most common in the mobility and automotive market than elsewhere. The gaming sector represents an outlier with a higher frequency of digital wallet fraud.

Confidence in ID fraud prevention highest in gaming

The survey showed that 83 percent of respondents were confident in their current identity fraud prevention systems with only five percent disagreeing. However, confidence levels in fraud prevention were mixed across different industries.

The automotive sector showed the lowest confidence rates, with 30 percent of respondents strongly agreeing that their identity fraud prevention measures are effective. In contrast, the gaming industry demonstrated the highest confidence levels at 48 percent strong agreement. The report attributes the gaming industry’s sentiments to frequent automated verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.

Regional differences also emerged in the survey data. Norwegian respondents showed the strongest confidence (50 percent) in their fraud mitigation capabilities, while French respondents were the least confident (25 percent strongly agree).

These figures, however, might have to be taken with a caveat: Only 53 percent of businesses consistently track fraud and just 45 percent consistently measure its impact.

“Confidence is a dangerous attitude to have in cybersecurity and fraud; account takeover and Synthetic ID fraud aren’t abstract threats,” says Lisa Forte, partner at Red Goat Cyber Security. “They’re happening now, and they’re targeting the same businesses that believe they have strong controls in place.”

The research drew responses from fraud decision-makers in the UK, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. The survey was conducted by research company Sapio between March and April 2025.

Article Topics

AI fraud  |  cybersecurity  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  Signicat  |  synthetic identity fraud