Digital wallet fraud is escalating at an alarming rate, and FinTech infrastructure firm Tieto Banktech is at the forefront of efforts to stop it.
As criminals exploit platforms such as Apple Pay and Google Pay to carry out phishing attacks and card enrolment fraud, Tieto has developed a layered defence system designed to intercept threats before they result in financial loss.
The attack method is increasingly familiar. Fraudsters use phishing to obtain card details and trick cardholders into sharing activation codes. Once a card is enrolled in a digital wallet under the criminal’s control, it can be used freely without a PIN, often resulting in significant losses for both customers and banks.
To address the problem at its source, Tieto developed Token Enrolment Monitoring (TEM) in 2024. The solution tracks every attempt to register a card in a digital wallet, cross-referencing parameters such as IP address, device language and geographic location against the cardholder’s established behaviour.
Tieto Banktech quality and risk manager, financial crime prevention Silje Andrea Kvernberg said, “If something doesn’t add up – such as an unfamiliar language or an IP address from a completely different country – the process is halted. The bank then contacts the cardholder to confirm whether the attempt is legitimate or initiated by a fraudster.”
The results are significant. TEM alone stops between 70% – 80% of all attempted digital wallet enrolment fraud, according to Tieto. The urgency is underscored by the growth in attack volumes. Tieto Banktech fraud specialist Sverre Larsen noted a 100 per cent year-on-year increase in digital wallet enrolment fraud cases between 2024 and 2025.
For attempts that do pass TEM, Tieto’s Card Transaction Monitoring (CTM) serves as a second layer of protection. The system analyses real-time transaction behaviour and flags anomalies, such as a card being used in Norway in the morning and again in Asia the same afternoon. During a phishing wave in late summer 2025, Tieto flagged roughly 3,000 cases in TEM without any losses. A further 600 cases progressed to transactions, of which 300 were stopped by CTM and losses in the remaining 300 were partially mitigated.
The scale of Tieto’s wider fraud prevention operation is considerable. In 2025, its Defence Centre blocked fraudulent activity totalling €1.132bn, more than three times the prior year’s figure. Within this, 3D Secure Monitoring declined transactions worth more than €225m. Looking to 2026, Tieto plans to introduce Money Mule Monitoring and Manipulation Risk Monitoring to add further layers of behavioural analysis and earlier fraud detection.
Sverre Larsen, Fraud Specialist at Tieto Banktech, said, “TEM isn’t built for one bank or one market. It’s modular, scalable and can be deployed across countries. The more cross-market insights we gather, the stronger the system becomes. TEM sets a new standard for how the industry can counter the threat to digital wallets.”
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
