Overview

• Banks across Asia-Pacific are directing AI spending to fraud detection, identity verification and anti-money-laundering, with 58% prioritizing these controls over customer personalization.
• Regional institutions are leading uptake of ISO 20022, a richer payments messaging standard that enables AI-driven anomaly detection to reduce exposure to financial crime.
• Authorities have launched targeted measures including Hong Kong’s Scameter alert tool, Singapore’s Shared Responsibility Framework assigning portions of scam losses to banks and telecom operators, and Australia’s Scam-Safe Accord for coordinated protections.
• The threat remains large, with reported losses reaching an estimated $688 billion in 2024 across the Asia-Pacific region.
• Compliance has scaled sharply as 98% of institutions expanded operations, pushing costs above $45 billion, while criminal groups increasingly use AI to accelerate and evade detection.