APAC banks favour AI fraud detection amidst security fears

FICO found that 42% of executives cited data privacy and protection as their biggest adoption barrier.

More than 60% of banking leaders in Asia-Pacific (APAC) identified fraud and scam detection as the area where generative artificial intelligence (AI) could most improve operations in the next 12 months, according to a survey by analytics software company FICO.

Underwriting decisions were cited by 21% of respondents, followed by customer-facing digital banking services at 15% and regulatory compliance monitoring at 3%.

The findings come as banks seek to adopt AI tools designed specifically for financial services. Some 77% of respondents said it was extremely important for banking AI tools to be purpose-built, whilst the remaining 23% considered this somewhat important.

Data privacy and security were the biggest barriers to adoption, cited by 42% of respondents. Regulatory and compliance risks and model transparency and explainability were each identified by 21%. Only 16% cited computing costs or infrastructure as their main concern.

Dattu Kompella, FICO’s managing director for APAC, said banks need AI models that can explain their decisions, be audited and meet regulatory requirements.

Banks also expect purpose-built AI to become more widely used in the coming years. Nearly half of respondents, or 46%, expect task-specific AI models to be deployed in fraud, compliance and underwriting within one to two years. 
Another 26% expect adoption within three to five years, whilst 26% said their organisations had already deployed such models.

Beyond fraud prevention, 64% identified credit underwriting and lending decisions as the back-office processes that would benefit most from purpose-built AI.

Regulatory compliance monitoring was cited by 18%, customer due diligence by 10% and internal policy and business operations reviews by 8%.

The survey was conducted in August 2026 during FICO’s Banking Leaders Forum in Bali, gathering responses from 51 senior executives and C-suite leaders at banks across APAC.