How Can Deepfakes Affect Payments and Global Onboarding?

As businesses scale across borders, the simplicity of digital onboarding and payments have met a formidable adversary: AI-driven deception, aka “deepfakes.” Remote verification, once the gold standard for global hiring, is now being compromised by synthetic identities that look and sound like legitimate contractors, forcing a shift in how companies protect their financial infrastructure.

The convenience of hiring a developer in Eastern Europe or a marketing specialist in Southeast Asia has historically been the engine of modern growth. However, this borderless efficiency has created a massive blind spot. 

In 2026, the primary threat to international scaling is no longer just administrative red tape or local tax compliance, it is the sophisticated impersonator. When a business opens its doors to a global workforce, it simultaneously opens a digital window for fraudsters to exploit.

For many organizations, the first sign of trouble isn't a dramatic breach; it is a subtle leak. It starts with a remote contractor who passes a standard video verification check but doesn't actually exist. This "ghost employee" then gains access to internal systems, or worse, begins receiving recurring payouts through automated systems. The psychological toll on security teams is immense, as they must now doubt the very faces they see on their screens.

The Exponential Rise of Synthetic Deception

The financial stakes of this new era are staggering. According to projections, the annual cost of global cybercrime is estimated to reach $10.5 trillion in 2025-2026. This isn't just a broad statistic; it reflects a targeted industrialization of fraud. In the United States alone, generative AI-facilitated fraud losses are expected to climb toward $40 billion by 2027, according to the Deloitte Center for Financial Services.

As we navigate this landscape, one question has become unavoidable for any business operating a global payout model: what are deepfakes?

What are Deepfakes?

Deepfakes are synthetic media, images, videos, or audio recordings, generated by artificial intelligence to impersonate a specific individual. Unlike the grainy, easily detectable filters of the early 2020s, modern deepfakes utilize Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). In this system, two AI models compete: one creates the fake, while the other tries to detect it, iteratively improving until the result is indistinguishable from reality to the human eye.

For a global business, this means a fraudster can now attend a "live" video onboarding call using a real-time face-swap that mimics a legitimate candidate's government ID. Recent reports from Gartner predict that by 2026, 30% of enterprises will no longer consider standalone identity verification and authentication solutions to be reliable in isolation.

Are There Documented Cases of Deepfake Fraud in Payments?

The transition from theoretical risk to documented financial loss has been rapid. These incidents illustrate how synthetic media can successfully bypass even the most established manual and digital controls:

The $25 Million Deepfake Boardroom Heist: In early 2024, a finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into transferring $25.6 million after a video call with deepfaked executives. This case demonstrates how real-time AI can weaponize corporate hierarchy to bypass traditional payment authorization.

UK Engineering Firm Authorization Breach: A UK-based firm lost £20 million in 2025 when fraudsters used AI to impersonate senior leadership during a cross-border authorization scam. The attackers convinced staff that "urgent" international vendor payments were required, exploiting a reliance on visual and auditory trust.

The 1,500% Surge In Singaporean Synthetic Mules: Deepfake fraud in Singapore rose by 1,500% in 2025 as criminals used digital masks to bypass liveness checks. These synthetic accounts are used to receive and launder illegal payouts, making fund recovery nearly impossible once the capital leaves the legitimate system.

How Can You Protect Your Payments Against Deepfakes?

Protecting a global payment ecosystem requires moving beyond trust but verify to a model of continuous authentication. Traditional verification methods, like a simple selfie or a static photo of a passport, are no longer sufficient barriers against an attacker using virtual camera injection.

To secure the onboarding-to-payout pipeline, industry leaders are implementing multi-layered security protocols that prioritize human presence over mere visual representation:

• Injection Attack Detection (IAD): Modern systems now look for the digital fingerprints left by virtual cameras or software emulators. Rather than just analyzing the face, the system analyzes how the video data is being delivered to the server.
• Dynamic Liveness Challenges: Instead of a static "smile for the camera," advanced protocols require users to perform unpredictable, micro-gestures, such as following a randomized light on a screen with their eyes or pronouncing a specific string of nonsense words. This makes it significantly harder for a pre-recorded or real-time deepfake to sync in real-time.
• Multi-Signal Risk Scoring: Security shouldn't rely on a single image. A robust defense involves cross-referencing device metadata, IP reputation, and behavioral biometrics, such as how a user types or navigates a form, against the provided identity documents.
• NFC-Based Document Verification: By using the Near Field Communication (NFC) chips embedded in modern passports and IDs, businesses can cryptographically verify that a document is authentic, a feat that a digital deepfake cannot replicate.

How to Identify Deepfake Fraud in Global Onboarding

Why has identifying deepfake fraud in global onboarding become the defining security challenge of 2026? The answer lies in the "speed of fraud." 

In previous years, a fraudulent contractor might be caught during a manual audit weeks after their first payment. Today, AI allows fraudsters to scale attacks across hundreds of companies simultaneously.

The vulnerability often lies in the hand-off between the onboarding team and the finance department. If the identity verification process is disconnected from the payout API, a fraudster only needs to bypass the initial gate once to gain access to a recurring revenue stream. This is why a unified approach to global payments is no longer a luxury, it is a defensive necessity.

Legacy payout systems and manual wire transfers are particularly susceptible to these gaps. Traditional methods often rely on manual data entry and vouching for a contractor’s identity, which is easily exploited by social engineering or sophisticated voice clones. Also, the lack of real-time risk signals in traditional banking makes it nearly impossible to stop a payment once the fraudulent contractor is in the system.

Partnering with a Payments API for Secure Global Onboarding and Payments

If your company is managing a diverse international workforce, the complexity of identifying deepfake fraud in global onboarding and payments requires a partner that integrates security directly into the payment rail. While many platforms offer simple money movement, few provide a holistic infrastructure that bridges the gap between identity and the actual payout.

Dots stands out as a partner of choice for businesses that need to automate global payouts without sacrificing security. Unlike legacy systems that require manual verification or high-fee wire transfers, Dots provides an API-first approach that unifies onboarding, compliance, and payments. By automating tax form collection and utilizing advanced identity verification that goes beyond the capabilities of traditional platforms, Dots ensures that your money only reaches verified, legitimate individuals.

While traditional providers may leave the burden of compliance and fraud detection on your team, Dots’ platform is built to handle the nuances of over 190 countries, offering a more resilient and secure alternative to fragmented payment workflows. By abstracting the technical burden of connecting to local bank systems individually, Dots allows you to maintain high security standards while lowering the risk of payout fraud.

Ready to protect your business and streamline your global operations? Talk to our team today to learn how our unified payout API can automate your compliance and keep your payments secure in the era of AI.