2026 Nordics survey of banking leaders on fraud risk

The Nordic fraud landscape is evolving as increasingly sophisticated social engineering attacks challenge traditional fraud prevention strategies. Rather than relying solely on technical vulnerabilities, criminals are increasingly manipulating human behavior, emotion, and trust, making scams more difficult to detect and stop.

At the same time, regulatory changes, including PSD3 and Open Finance, are reshaping how financial institutions approach fraud prevention. As new payment liability standards and data-sharing frameworks take effect, banks must strengthen fraud controls while continuing to deliver secure, seamless digital experiences.

Based on a survey of 100 fraud and financial crime leaders at banks across the region (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), this report explores where fraud teams are feeling the greatest pressure, which threats concern them most, and how prepared they are for evolving regulations, emerging technologies, and the next generation of fraud.

In these results, you’ll discover:

• A rise in fraud: A majority of Nordic respondents (60%) report an increase in fraud attempts at their organization, including 16% who describe the increase as significant. Only 10% of Nordic banking leaders report a year-over-year decline in fraud attempts.
• Millions lost to fraud each year: Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents say their organization loses more than $10 million to fraud annually, while 39% report losses exceeding $25 million. That places the Nordics second only to the Netherlands among the geographies surveyed for the share of organizations reporting annual fraud losses exceeding $25 million.
• Operational efficiency remains a challenge: Workflow fragmentation and manual workloads rank as the most common day-to-day operational challenges, while more respondents identified staffing constraints as their No. 1 concern than any other issue.
• Institutions remain confident in their fraud controls: Eighty percent of respondents rate their organization's fraud controls as effective, with nearly half (48%) describing them as very effective.
• Social media and phone calls drive fraud: More than half (51%) of respondents rank social media among the top three channels fraudsters use to engage victims, with phone calls close behind (49%).
• Banks are ready for the next phase of digital banking: Eighty-seven percent of respondents say their organization is at least mostly ready for new manipulated payment liability standards tied to digital ID systems such as BankID and MitID.

Download the report to see the full results and accompanying analysis from our global fraud intelligence team.