When fraud strikes, it’s a defining moment that can either shatter customer trust in your organization or strengthen it. If we look at the McKinsey data, we’ll see that there’s a lot on the line at such times: customer satisfaction after fraud incidents could swing from +82 to –58 depending on how the issue was managed, and more recent data shows that 87% of people say they avoid a company after just one negative experience.

Fraud can break trust or build it, depending on how you respond to it. With “The New Trust in Finance” leading the agenda at Money 20/20 Las Vegas, it’s clear that in 2025, the future belongs to those who transform every test of trust into proof of strength. At SPD Technology, we’re joining this conversation with our own insights and a real-world example.

Why Fraud Has Become a Trust Crisis

The cumulative cost of online payment fraud is projected to surpass $362 billion over the five years leading up to 2028. Moreover, digital payment fraud is growing faster than institutions can adapt their defenses to counter it. Yet what’s at stake isn’t just money, it’s credibility. A poorly handled fraud case can take years to repair and permanently damage a brand’s reputation. 

One of the examples is Western Union. In 2017, the company admitted that its money-transfer system had been used by fraudsters and that it had violated obligations around AML and consumer-fraud protections. It agreed to forfeit $586 million in a settlement with U.S. authorities. In this case, the money was recoverable, while the trust wasn’t. This was the real price paid as the company was criticized for failing its customers.

At the time, Western Union was at risk of losing customers. This concern is even more critical today for all financial institutions, as rising acquisition costs make every churn user more expensive to acquire. More businesses now recognize that how they handle fraud incidents can be the deciding factor in customer retention.

At Money 20/20 Las Vegas, multiple sessions discuss that fragile trust thrives on transparency. Speakers will focus on how dynamic, risk-based decisioning can strengthen customer trust, how effective fraud resolution strategies can enhance brand loyalty, and how rising fraud rates and evolving customer expectations are reshaping the very definition of trust for digital businesses.

Why Legacy Fraud Strategies Can’t Keep Up

So where do we go from here? Traditional fraud management simply doesn’t cut it anymore. 

Historically, fraud management has meant playing defense and acting after the hit instead of before it lands. Many companies are still reliant on legacy systems, which use such a rule-based detection. What adds to the inconvenience are the facts that risk teams often operate in silos, limiting visibility across data sources, and that manual dispute processes slow down resolution and frustrate customers.

Today, however, fraud moves faster, adapts more quickly, and hides more deeply within legitimate behavior. Customers, too, are pushing standards higher as they expect instant resolution, smooth digital services, and straightforward accountability. Yet too often, the response to fraud punishes the wrong customers through errors, delays, and defensiveness that damage loyalty. That’s why, at SPD Technology, we believe trust grows from prediction rather than reaction.

A Case Study in Predictive Risk Management

To make fraud and risk management proactive and adaptive, AI systems prove to be exceptionally powerful in recognizing evolving patterns that static rules can typically miss. Where rule-based systems stop at predefined patterns, AI evolves with the data and detects new and nuanced fraud behaviors as they appear.

While many financial institutions are only beginning their journey toward AI-powered fraud prevention, the foundation for such systems starts with intelligent automation and real-time data processing. We helped a global fintech leader build exactly that: a high-performance risk management solution designed to scale toward AI integration.

The Challenge:

Our client had an online payment platform that was growing faster than their defenses. Fraud patterns were evolving, analysts were juggling manual reviews, and underwriting decisions took longer than they should. This is why the company asked us to automate underwriting so decisions were consistent and fast, enhance transaction monitoring to see risks in real time, and enable risk teams to detect and respond to threats much faster.

What We Built:

We treated the platform like a living system: it needed to sense risk, decide quickly, and learn from each outcome. So, our team designed an automated risk management  with the following functionalities:

  • Camunda-driven underwriting with integrated third-party data.
  • In-house scoring and counter engines for dynamic risk.
  • Real-time + post-transaction monitoring to flag anomalies and suspicious patterns.
  • Warhammer analyst console for fast reviews, alert triage, and merchant controls.

Under the hood, the stack is built for velocity and headroom: Java, Spring Boot, React, and AWS. This tech allowed for a cloud-native and horizontally scalable system engineered for the demands of high-volume payments. 

The Results:

Once implemented, the system delivered measurable results in real-world operations. A single-year turnaround showed financial losses reduced by nearly 69%. This success was mirrored in a 50% slash to the chargeback rate.

On top of these results, the system’s architecture is built ready for the next wave: AI-driven decisioning. Our team is preparing to integrate machine learning models for predictive, self-improving, and accurate fraud detection.

Conclusion

Even when fraud occurs, trust doesn’t have to fall with it. That’s why financial companies must move from traditional to AI-driven fraud prevention systems. Gaining insights from Money 20/20 Las Vegas can be an important step toward more innovative risk management. There, attendees can explore how to combine AI-powered risk management with a customer-first mindset, just as our fintech client did, and turn risk into resilience. We’ll be there to help modernize fraud prevention, so it becomes a catalyst for durable customer loyalty. Connect with us to meet at the event and make a difference together.