Fraud is digital

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You know that gut feeling you get when someone you just met tells a story that’s too good to be true? When a “friend of a friend” suddenly messages you about a sure-win investment; limited offer only, and you will supposedly earn big in just a few weeks? Or when a long-lost “uncle from abroad” suddenly reaches out right when he needs your bank details?

Digital fraud feels exactly like that: familiar, friendly and somehow very fishy.

Except online, there’s no handshake. No real face. And by the time you realize it was a scam, your money, your data and your identity are gone.

The Philippines has been under cyberattack these past years as technology advances. Digital threats continue to loom, and sophisticated scams remain unstoppable and relentless.

By 2025, the Philippines was already deep into a cybersecurity collision with reality.

Filipino businesses were among the most targeted for cyberattacks in ASEAN, landing third regionally with 1.8 million on-device attacks, including malware delivered through everyday tools like USB drives.

Data breaches are nothing new here. A recent overview shows hundreds of millions of Philippine accounts have been exposed over years of breaches, leaving identities and financial information vulnerable.

AI and deepfake-powered scams are no longer futuristic anecdotes; they have real victims. Reports noted a massive increase in AI-enabled deepfake fraud, where manipulated video and voice clones trick people into sending money or sharing credentials.

And beyond technical hacks, people are being scammed in very human ways: phishing, social engineering and deceptive communications that look exactly like they came from someone you trust.

This isn’t paranoia. It’s the baseline for how digital fraud thrives.

But thankfully, the government and regulators have been responding.

In July 2024, the Philippines enacted Republic Act 12010, the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA), designed to strengthen fraud-prevention frameworks and penalize the sale, lending or misuse of financial accounts in scams.

Law enforcement made real arrests under AFASA in 2025, targeting individuals selling financial and e-wallet accounts online; a key enabler of digital scams.

Other legislative efforts like the proposed Philippine Scam Prevention Center aim to centralize and speed up responses to evolving cyber threats across agencies.

It’s a solid start, but the threat isn’t static. It evolves, just like those scam messages in your inbox. It learns from its victims and disguises itself into customer behavior.

If 2025 was the year we realized we’re being watched, 2026 is shaping up to be the year technology watches back. AI remains a double-edged sword.

We foresee AI-driven attacks becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect, with malicious models generating phishing campaigns and crafted social engineering at scale.

Deepfakes and synthetic personas will increasingly blur the line between real and fake, making identity verification and fraud detection more complex than ever.

Misinformation tactics will be weaponized to erode digital trust and lure victims into unsafe online behavior.

In ASEAN, trust in digital services is already fragile, with surveys showing rising consumer scam exposure and fear of fraud.

Especially in the Philippines, TransUnion’s studies show that 74 percent of Filipinos reported being targeted by digital fraud schemes (email/online/phone/text) and 34 percent reported actually losing money due to fraud, well above global averages.

It is crucial for banks, laws and the public sector to adjust to this. For financial institutions, compliance isn’t just legal. Compliance is survival.

One example close to home is RCBC Pulz’s single-device access policy, rolled out on Jan. 5, 2026. Under this policy, you can only log into your account from one primary registered device, a move designed to block unauthorized access, phishing and account takeovers. Any non-primary devices lose access automatically.

This isn’t just a security theater. It’s aligned with AFASA’s intent to tighten account controls, reduce the risk surface and enforce the idea that your account is truly yours. By limiting login flexibility in exchange for higher fraud resistance, Pulz is pushing the practical boundary of digital fraud prevention.

2026 will also be the year we see OTP-less banking. On the horizon are more stringent biometric authentication methods. Facial recognition, fingerprints and behavioral device intelligence and biometrics that are harder to spoof than SMS or app codes will be mainstream. We predict OTP-less security frameworks that rely on device signals, AI risk scoring and continuous verification rather than one-time passwords that scammers intercept.

Lastly, AI-powered fraud detection systems are to be embedded into everyday banking, flagging anomalies before money ever leaves your account. The goal is to make fraud too hard to execute and easier to prevent.

Digital fraud is like that person at a party whose smile is just a little too wide, whose story is just a little too perfect. At first, you might trust them. But once they’ve slipped a lie into a story, or picked your pocket, that trust disappears.

In 2026, the digital world is the party. And fraudsters are already inside the house.

It’s a hard reality pill to swallow. But we are committed to fight this war.

We are not helpless, nor hopeless.

We are ready to equip smarter systems, better laws like AFASA and proactive steps like the single-device policy, so we can make sure you aren’t the next victim. And kudos to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for being progressive and proactive in our collective efforts to fight cyberfraud.

In the digital world, fraud isn’t coming. It’s already here. And the best defense is not just tech. It’s awareness. Proaction. Responsiveness. And most importantly, the agility to respond to whatever may come our way.