Spanish Banks Reduce Fraud Attempts By 23% Thanks To Behavioral Defenses - Vast Majority Of All Fraud Cases Taking Place On Mobile Platforms

Spanish banks working with BioCatch, which prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, reported a 23% decline in overall fraud attempts in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period a year ago. By comparison, a recent survey of banking leaders at banks around the world found 73% of Spanish respondents reported an increase in fraud attempts at their organization. The bulk of this reduction among BioCatch partners comes from a 52% decrease in third-party account takeover fraud (ATO). Social engineering scam case volumes remained flat, now accounting for 58% of all reported fraud in the country.

 

“As third-party fraud has grown more difficult to execute in Spain, bad actors have pivoted, mastering the art of socially engineering their victims to willingly authorize and execute fraudulent payments on the criminals’ behalf,” BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Thomas Peacock said. “In 2025, this is undoubtedly the No. 1 problem facing banks in Spain.”

 

The report, 2025 Digital Banking Fraud Trends in Spain, also looks ahead to where fraudsters might turn next, highlighting recent increases in both card fraud and malware in the country. Nearly three quarters of mobile banking sessions in Spain originate from Android devices, which are the devices of choice for malware attacks.

 

“This reinforces the need for a proactive malware detection strategy rather than reactive approaches,” Peacock said. “Isolating the behaviours seen across multiple malware strains can help banks get ahead of the problem and reduce their dependence on the quick identification of individual malicious packages. With behavioral solutions, banks can identify malware sessions even when fraudsters modify or the bank has never before seen the malware’s packaging.”

 

 

 

Click here to view the complete report.