Fraud was once constrained by the time and effort required to steal an identity, forge documents, and target individual institutions. Artificial intelligence and automation have dismantled many of those barriers.
Today’s fraud rings operate more like sophisticated digital businesses. They can generate synthetic identities at scale, probe authentication systems thousands of times per minute, and coordinate attacks across institutions, channels, and borders.
According to Symcor President and CEO Holger Kormann, fraud has become “industrialized”—and Canada’s financial sector must respond with the same level of coordination.
The stakes are rising as Canada prepares for the Real-Time Rail, which is set to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026. Faster payments promise greater convenience and efficiency, but they also reduce the window in which financial institutions can identify suspicious activity and intervene before money moves.
Kormann argues that the answer is a collaborative fraud-prevention model that allows banks, fintechs, payment providers, and infrastructure partners to combine critical signals without compromising customer privacy or competitive information. Rather than treating security as an addition to payments modernization, he believes Canada must build trusted identity verification, shared intelligence, and clear governance into the system from the outset.
Fintech.ca spoke with Kormann about the industrialization of fraud, why identity has become a critical safety perimeter, and what Canada must do to build a real-time payments ecosystem defined by trust as well as speed.
You’ve described fraud as becoming “industrialized.” What does that look like in practical terms, and how is it different from the fraud environment that banks and payment providers were dealing with even a few years ago?
HK: Fraud has changed. It used to be slower, more visible and more dependent on individual actors. Fraudsters needed a stolen ID, a template, maybe even a printer. Today, they’re operating with the speed and sophistication of organized digital enterprises.
Fraud rings can now generate synthetic identities at scale, test authentication systems thousands of times per minute, and share tools, tactics and data across borders. It’s no longer one fraudster targeting one institution at a time. It’s coordinated, automated and increasingly powered by AI. What stands out most is the scale and speed. The barriers that once limited fraud have largely disappeared, allowing attacks to spread quickly across institutions, channels and borders. Fraudsters are collaborating and the financial ecosystem needs to respond with the same level of coordination.
AI is clearly giving fraudsters new tools, from synthetic identities to automated attacks, as you’ve said. Where are you seeing the biggest threat today: account opening, payments, identity verification, social engineering, or somewhere else?
HK: The honest answer is that these threats are connected, and that’s what makes them so difficult to combat. Fraudsters don’t think of account opening, payments and identity verification as separate activities. They look for the weakest point in the journey and move quickly from one vulnerability to the next.
That said, identity is becoming a critical safety perimeter. Once an identity is accepted, everything that follows tends to be trusted. The account can be opened. The payment can be initiated. The transaction can move. In a real-time environment, once the money moves, there’s often no second chance. That’s why the most effective place to stop fraud is before the payment happens, before trust is assumed.
Canada has been slower than some other markets to modernize its payments infrastructure. Does that delay create specific fraud vulnerabilities, or has it given the industry more time to design stronger protections before real-time payments arrive at scale?
HK: I think both things can be true. Canadians expect payments to be fast, simple and secure but Canada also has an opportunity to be thoughtful about how fraud prevention is built into modern payment systems.
The key is not to treat security as an add-on. If we build new payment capabilities first and layer protections on afterward, we will always be playing catch-up. Canada has a chance to design a payments environment that is resilient by design with shared fraud signals, detection frameworks, and shared governance in place before real-time payments scale. If the industry can align around that approach, it will be well positioned to support innovation without compromising security.
Real-time payments are often discussed in terms of speed and convenience, but fraud moves faster in a real-time environment too. With Canada’s Real Time Rail set to launch in Q4 of this year, what needs to be in place before Canada can safely scale real-time payments?
HK: Speed is only valuable if people can trust it. Real-time payments will bring enormous convenience and efficiency, but they also remove something fraud teams have historically relied on: the time between payment and processing. That buffer becomes much smaller and, in some cases, disappears.
Before real-time payments scale, Canada needs a collective approach to fraud prevention. That includes trusted identity verification, strong authentication, shared fraud intelligence and clear escalation paths. No single institution sees the full pattern on its own. One may see a transaction. Another may see an account. Another may see a behaviour pattern. The safest system is one where those signals can come together securely and quickly enough to stop fraud before money moves.
You’ve argued that fragmented defences are no longer enough. What would a more collaborative fraud-fighting model look like in Canada, and what kinds of signals should banks, fintechs, and payment providers be sharing?
HK: Fragmented defences are no longer enough because fraud itself is not fragmented. Fraud rings operate across institutions, channels and identities. If each organization only sees its own slice of activity, important patterns can be missed.
A more collaborative model would look like a shared brain for fraud prevention. This is precisely the type of challenge that solutions like Symcor’s fraud platform addresses, helping institutions connect fraud signals, surface threats earlier and respond more effectively. That does not mean sharing everything. It means identifying the right signals to share, at the right time, with the right governance.
The goal is better context, enabling banks, fintechs and payment providers to detect threats earlier, reduce false positives and better protect Canadians.
There is always tension between sharing enough data to stop fraud and protecting customer privacy and competitive information. How can the industry collaborate on fraud intelligence without crossing those lines?
HK: That tension is real, and it needs to be respected. Collaboration cannot come at the expense of privacy, security or competitive confidence. In fact, trust depends on getting those boundaries right.
The answer is governance. The industry needs clear rules around what information is shared, why it is shared, how it is protected and who can act on it. Fraud intelligence does not require open-ended data sharing. It requires purposeful signal sharing. With the right controls, standards and accountability in place, the industry can collaborate to protect consumers while respecting privacy and competitive boundaries.
Fintechs often move faster than large financial institutions, while banks have deeper fraud, compliance, and risk infrastructure. What role should fintechs play in a shared fraud prevention ecosystem?
HK: Fintechs play an important role. They bring speed, innovation and valuable insight into emerging digital behaviours. Banks bring deep experience in risk, compliance and security, while payment providers and infrastructure partners contribute another layer of operational visibility. Canada needs all of those strengths working together.
Fraud prevention should not be treated as a competitive space. Different organizations see different signals but everyone shares an interest in maintaining trust in the system. Fintechs need a seat at the table because they serve different customer needs and can help shape solutions that are both secure and user-friendly. The future of fraud prevention will depend on collaboration across the full ecosystem.
Looking ahead, what do you think will define trust in digital payments over the next five years: stronger authentication, better data-sharing, AI-powered detection, regulation, or something else entirely?
HK: It will be all of those things, but the real differentiator will be how well they work together. Strong authentication matters. Better data sharing matters. AI-powered detection matters. Regulation and governance matter. But none of them will be enough on their own.
Trust will be defined by whether Canadians believe the system is safe, consistent and working in their best interest. That means building safety into modern payments from the outset, not treating it as an afterthought. If Canada can modernize collectively and build trust through safety, not just speed, we will create a more resilient payments ecosystem that supports innovation and confidence.
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