Question 1

What is Authorised Push Payment fraud (APP fraud)?

Accepted Answer

Authorised Push Payment fraud is a scam where a victim is manipulated into willingly sending money to a fraudster posing as a legitimate payee, such as a bank, supplier, or government body. Because the victim initiates the payment themselves, traditional fraud controls that flag unauthorised transactions often fail to catch it.

Question 2

What are examples of APP fraud?

Accepted Answer

APP fraud examples include invoice fraud, where a business is tricked into paying a hijacked supplier account; romance scams, where fraudsters build fake relationships to solicit transfers; and impersonation scams, where criminals pose as a bank or regulator to urgently redirect funds. Investment scams and CEO fraud — where an employee is instructed by a fake executive to wire funds — are also common vectors. All of these result in authorised payments that bypass standard authorisation controls.

Question 3

How does Authorised Push Payment fraud detection work?

Accepted Answer

Authorised Push Payment fraud detection works by analysing the behavioural patterns of both the sending and receiving account, not just the transaction itself. Fraudio's P2P product combines an event rail that scores each transfer in real time with an entity rail that continuously profiles accounts across inflows, outflows, velocity, counterparties, and device signals. When a receiving account suddenly accumulates funds from multiple senders and disperses them within minutes, the system flags and alerts within seconds. Supervised and unsupervised AI models detect both known fraud typologies and emergent coordinated campaigns.

Question 4

How to prevent Authorised Push Payment fraud?

Accepted Answer

Preventing Authorised Push Payment fraud requires monitoring account behaviour over time, not just screening individual transactions at the point of payment. Effective APP fraud prevention combines real-time transaction scoring, entity profiling, customisable rules, and network-level intelligence derived from billions of cross-institution transactions. Fraudio allows institutions to automatically hold or freeze suspicious accounts and trigger investigations before settlement occurs. Integration takes days rather than months, meaning protection starts from the first transaction processed.

Question 5

Does Fraudio use AI in Authorised Push Payment fraud detection?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Fraudio uses AI in Authorised Push Payment fraud detection through supervised machine learning, which identifies known APP fraud patterns, and unsupervised learning, which surfaces emerging threats. The AI models learn continuously from billions of transactions across Fraudio's centralised dataset, spanning banks, issuers, acquirers, and wallets globally — creating network effects no single institution's data could replicate. Fraudio's self-training AI modules update automatically, so detection improves without requiring internal data science resources.

Question 6

Can Fraudio detect money mule fraud across instant payment networks?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Fraudio is designed specifically to monitor instant payment networks, digital wallets, and account-to-account transfers where money mule activity is most prevalent. The P2P product scores every transfer in real time while building a continuous behavioural profile of each account across inflows, outflows, velocity, and counterparty patterns. Fraudio supports all major instant payment rails, including iDEAL, Pix, and Bancontact, and processes up to 10,000 transactions per second. Prioritised alerts are delivered via API and webhook, enabling automated account freezes before funds leave the mule network.

Question 7

How quickly can Fraudio be integrated for APP fraud and money mule protection?

Accepted Answer

Fraudio can be fully integrated and live within 3 to 14 days, compared to the 5 to 14 months required by legacy platforms. Integration is API-first, requiring no significant engineering overhead, setup fees, or implementation costs. Because Fraudio's AI is pre-trained on billions of cross-institutional transactions, there is no ramp-up period — protection is active from the first transaction processed. Customers with historical data can provide it at setup to enable more granular modelling and rule suggestions from day one.

Authorised Push Payment Fraud Protection

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