BioCatch, a behavioural biometrics company that helps banks and other financial institutions detect and prevent fraud, has found that attempted impersonation scams among its US customer base rose sharply over the past year.
New data gathered from 292 financial institutions across the US, together serving more than 280 million customers, shows that attempts to carry out impersonation scams increased by 130% between 2025 and 2026.
These scams typically involve fraudsters posing as well-known figures, family members or, most often, staff at trusted organisations, using that assumed familiarity or authority to persuade victims to hand over money under false pretences.
Despite impersonation scams being reported to the Federal Trade Commission more frequently than any other scam category last year, they were not the most financially damaging. Investment scams remained the costliest category among BioCatch’s US customer base, with fraudsters offering unrealistic returns across a range of asset classes and often relying on spoofed websites and fake broker platforms to pressure victims into acting quickly.
BioCatch’s customers, which include three of the four largest US banks by assets, recorded $46m in attempted investment fraud losses, considerably below the $8.6bn the FBI estimated was lost to investment fraud nationwide in 2025. Purchase scams and scams involving impersonation of law enforcement or legal professionals ranked as the next most costly categories, generating $28m and $22m in reported losses respectively.
The report also highlighted several other emerging fraud trends among BioCatch’s US customer base. Phishing attempts climbed by 50% year-on-year, while seven in ten account takeover sessions took place after 5pm.
Scam activity continued to dominate as the leading threat, with more than 83.9% of fraud attempts recorded between June 2025 and May 2026 originating from devices located within the US, reflecting the growing use of social engineering tactics in which scammers based anywhere in the world manipulate victims into approving fraudulent transactions themselves.
Sessions involving remote-access tools, which grant criminals unauthorised entry to banking applications, email accounts and other sensitive personal data, rose by 45% over the same period.
BioCatch Fraud Intelligence Research Analyst Gary Patterson said, “While impersonation scams were the most commonly reported scam type to the Federal Trade Commission last year, they were not the most costly. Investment scams continue to account for the majority of scam losses in the U.S., with scammers promising high returns on a range of different investment classes, often employing spoofed websites and fake broker platforms to create a false sense of urgency.”
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