Experian Backs AI Fraud Fighter Resistant AI – What It Means for the Future of Financial Crime Detection

The war against financial fraud is evolving fast—and so are the weapons used to fight it. This month, Experian, a global heavyweight in data and credit intelligence, announced a strategic investment in Prague-based fraud detection innovator Resistant AI.

The partnership signals a sharp acceleration in the arms race between financial institutions and cybercriminals, and it may have major implications for fraud prevention not just in Europe and the US, but also across Asia-Pacific markets.

As fraud tactics grow in sophistication and speed, this collaboration underscores a critical industry truth: rule-based systems can no longer keep pace with real-time, AI-enabled financial crime.

Why Resistant AI Matters

Resistant AI has rapidly earned a reputation for its advanced, machine learning-powered anomaly detection models. Its technology is designed to work invisibly within a financial institution’s infrastructure, spotting subtle behavioural anomalies, transactional red flags, and fake identities in real time—before damage is done.

Unlike traditional fraud systems that rely on historical rules and thresholds, Resistant AI's models learn from new fraud patterns, adapting with every new transaction. This is a vital shift in an era where fraudsters are also adopting AI to probe defences, bypass identity checks, and coordinate attacks across borders and platforms.

This capability is particularly valuable for tackling Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud—a rapidly growing threat where victims are tricked into sending money to fraudsters posing as legitimate payees. APP fraud doesn’t rely on stolen credentials. Instead, it manipulates victims’ trust—and because the transfer is "authorised," reversing it is notoriously difficult.

Why the Experian Partnership Is Important

Experian brings to the table a vast repository of consumer and business data, robust verification infrastructure, and strong relationships with global financial institutions. By combining Experian’s data assets with Resistant AI’s adaptive detection models, the two firms aim to launch a purpose-built tool for APP fraud—one that identifies both known and emerging threats before payments are completed.

This matters not just for the UK, where APP fraud is estimated to make up nearly half of all fraud cases, but globally. According to industry analysts, real-time payment fraud—including APP—has surged in APAC markets such as Singapore, India, Hong Kong, and Australia, where faster payment rails and peer-to-peer platforms have become common.

For instance:

• Singapore’s PayNow system has experienced rising social engineering and APP-style scams.

• India’s UPI ecosystem has seen fraudsters impersonating vendors and government agents to redirect real-time payments.

• In Australia, the ACCC’s Scamwatch reported over A$470 million in total scam losses in 2023, with APP fraud being one of the most damaging formats.

The Disappearing Line Between Fraud and Money Laundering

One of the most telling remarks from Resistant AI CEO Martin Rehak is that “APP fraud can morph into money laundering in under 5 seconds.” This isn’t hyperbole—it’s the reality of modern financial crime, where criminal operations use a web of mule accounts, layered transactions, and synthetic identities to obscure their trail in minutes.

That’s why the line between anti-fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) is becoming increasingly blurred. Institutions can no longer treat fraud and AML as separate compliance functions. Instead, convergence is key—and AI is what enables that fusion.

By detecting behaviour that doesn’t conform to customer profiles, spotting the movement of funds through suspicious networks, and applying pattern recognition across channels and entities, AI makes it possible to connect fraud at the front-end with laundering at the back-end.

A New Blueprint for Financial Crime Prevention in APAC

Asia-Pacific is uniquely positioned to benefit from this kind of innovation:

• High digital adoption across banking, fintech, and e-commerce has made the region a target for scalable fraud operations.

• Regulatory pressure is intensifying, with central banks and regulators such as MAS (Singapore), BNM (Malaysia), HKMA (Hong Kong), and AUSTRAC (Australia) demanding tighter fraud controls and data-sharing frameworks.

• Cross-border payments and remittances are critical economic lifelines—but also prime targets for mule networks and identity abuse.

Yet many institutions across the region still rely on fragmented fraud and AML systems, siloed data lakes, and rigid workflows that can’t respond in real time. The Experian–Resistant AI collaboration is a glimpse into the future—a model where adaptive, intelligent fraud prevention becomes native to transaction flow.

What This Means for Banks and Fintechs

If you’re a financial institution, payment processor, or digital wallet operator in Asia-Pacific, here’s what this shift suggests:

1. The Cost of Inaction is Rising: Fraudulent attacks can cause immediate financial loss—but also trigger regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage, and customer churn.

   
   

2. AI Is Not a Luxury—It’s Infrastructure: Just as cloud computing became essential a decade ago, AI-powered risk detection is now foundational to maintaining trust in digital finance.

   
   

3. Real-Time Prevention Must Be Frictionless: Customers expect seamless experiences. That means fraud detection needs to be both invisible and effective, flagging threats without blocking legitimate activity.

   
   

4. Collaboration is Essential: Cross-institutional data-sharing, federated learning, and public-private threat intelligence networks will be the backbone of effective fraud defence in the region.

Closing Thoughts: Evolving from Detection to Prediction

The Experian–Resistant AI deal is a harbinger of change. It reflects not just an investment in cutting-edge technology, but a strategic bet on the future of financial crime prevention—one where AI doesn’t just detect fraud, but predicts and prevents it.

For Asia-Pacific, where the growth of digital finance has outpaced the evolution of fraud defences, the need to adopt next-gen tools is urgent. Banks, fintechs, and regulators must now co-create an environment where adaptive intelligence and shared data ecosystems become the new standard.

Because in a world where fraud can evolve in seconds, our defences must evolve even faster.