Protecting Progress: Why Financial Inclusion and Instant Payments Must Be Secured from Day One
By Dr. Kimmo Soramäki (Founder & CEO)
At this year’s PIPC conference in Johannesburg, conversations around financial inclusion and payment innovation underscored a key point: modern payment systems are national growth strategies.
Arif Ismael of the South African Reserve Bank reminded us that the core purpose of payments modernisation is often overlooked. It is to drive economic growth. Modern payment systems expand participation, accelerate the velocity of money, reduce reliance on costly cash, and empower small businesses and households.
Professor Adrian Saville supported this with clear evidence from many countries. Deeper financial inclusion consistently increases GDP and productivity. Expanding access to digital finance and electronic payments boosts growth, shortens working capital cycles, lifts SME revenues, and strengthens employment.
But with this progress comes vulnerability. The same speed and openness that make instant payments so powerful also create opportunities for abuse by criminals.
Without built-in protections, millions are left exposed. The risk is especially high for those new to digital finance. As Megan Brown highlighted in our panel, unlike card fraud, where merchants, acquirers, or issuers often absorb losses, account-based scams typically hurt individuals directly. These are not just financial losses – they also cause emotional harm and erode trust in payments and digital commerce.
In the same panel, Andre Wentzel, CEO of SABRIC, shared insights from a highly successful proof-of-concept with major South African banks. By manually tracing and freezing fraudulent funds in a co-located setting, they proved that even without full automation, collaboration can deliver great results. However, as case loads increase, manual processes become a bottleneck.
I shared what I’ve learned from working with over 60 countries on fraud and scam response. The most important lesson is that the foundation must be built on day one: central infrastructure where banks, fintechs, wallets, and law enforcement can coordinate in real time to trace funds, flag suspicious activity, and freeze mule accounts — and to do this at scale with technology.
This infrastructure also enables prevention by sharing mule account information that allows banks and fintechs to identify fraud and scams. By capturing high-quality fraud data, it further supports AI models that can detect fraud before payments are made. This is essential because fraudsters are already using AI to increase both the scale and the sophistication of scams. The only effective response is to fight AI with AI.
Andy White from Australia put it best: the goal of Australia is be to make fraud and scams so difficult that criminals find it too expensive to operate and leave for elsewhere. Every country should strive to reach that standard..
