Lecture series
Fraud in digital lending: patterns and controls
How fraud reaches a lender and how to control it: what counts as fraud and how it differs from credit loss, identity fraud at onboarding, first-party fraud, account takeover and scams, insider and partner fraud, and how to run and measure fraud controls, with dated figures from Southeast Asia and other regions as examples. Six lessons.
5 of 6 lessons published. Lesson 1 is free to read.
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- 01What fraud in lending is: types, victims and how it is measuredIn lending, fraud means obtaining money or credit by deception: a loan taken under a false identity or with no intention to repay, an account taken over, or a customer deceived into borrowing or paying. This lesson separates fraud from credit loss, maps the main types and who bears each loss, shows how fraud losses are measured and how they hide among bad debts, and reads dated figures from Singapore, the United States and Europe.
- 02Identity fraud at onboarding: stolen, synthetic and impersonated identitiesIdentity fraud is a loan taken in a name that is not the applicant's own: a real person's stolen details, an identity assembled from real and fake information, or a real person impersonated at a live check. This lesson separates the three, follows how each one is built and why some leave no victim to complain, sets out the steps of identity proofing used by international standards, and shows with a worked example why checks are layered.
- 03First-party fraud: false information, loan stacking and bust-outsIn first-party fraud the applicant is who they say they are, but deceives the lender: by overstating income, by hiding other loans taken at the same time, or by building a good record in order to borrow as much as possible and never repay. This lesson explains why intent is what separates it from credit loss, how each pattern works, what research and international principles say about misreported income and incomplete credit data, and how to tell stacking from need with a worked example.
- 04Account takeover and scams: when the customer's account, or the customer, is usedIn account takeover, a criminal gains control of a genuine customer's account and borrows or redirects money in that customer's name. In a scam, the customer is deceived and acts personally. This lesson separates the two, shows how accounts are taken over and why codes sent to a phone prove less than they seem, sets out measures that two central banks in the region announced or required, weighs a waiting period with a worked example, and explains what a lender can see when its own customer is being deceived.
- 05Insider, agent and partner fraudSome fraud is committed, or made possible, by people inside the lending chain: staff who approve or pay out loans, agents who meet customers and collect documents, and partners who originate or service loans in the lender's name. This lesson explains why insiders are hard to catch, what research shows about loan officers and incentives, how agents both commit fraud and suffer it, why a lender stays responsible for its partners, and how early defaults grouped by agent reveal problems.
- 06Running fraud controls: layers, data sharing, measurement and who bears the loss
Quiz and certificate 9 questions; those on lesson 1 are free to try. Read every published lesson and score 80% or more for a certificate of completion.
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