Abrigo Inc., a provider of credit risk, compliance, and lending solutions for financial institutions, announced early Wednesday the launch of Abrigo Fraud Detection for ACH.

The solution detects fraud for inbound automated clearing house transactions, ACH check deposits, wire payments, and ACH origination and receipt. Support for additional payment types will be introduced throughout 2026, Abrigo says.

ACH fraud is a growing problem. In 2024, 38% of organizations experienced attempted or actual ACH fraud, up from 33% in 2023, according to the Association of Financial Professionals’ 2025 Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report. The AFP received 521 responses from treasury professionals.

Abrigo’s ACH fraud-detection service applies real-time behavioral analytics to ACH transactions to identify high-risk patterns, such as mule accounts, fan-out behavior, and unusual timing, before transactions are processed. Fan-out behavior is a tactic in which criminals disperse money fraudulently obtained from a single account across multiple, smaller accounts or send it to various recipients involved in the scam, such as money mules, to launder the money.

The solution also supports transaction-level case consolidation and optional account verification and customer confirmation. Monitoring of ACH origination and receipt activity streamlines reviews, reduces false positives, and supports evolving fraud-detection expectations from Nacha, the governing body for the ACH network, Abrigo says.

“Nacha has evolved its risk-management framework to require all financial institutions to establish and implement risk-based processes and procedures reasonably intended to identify ACH entries initiated due to fraud,” an Abrigo spokesperson says by email. “ACH volumes continue to rise, as does fraud in ACH at an even faster pace, making it imperative that we have a solution directed to this issue.”

One aspect of ACH fraud that is growing rapidly is business email compromise attacks. According to the AFP, 63% of organizations iexperienced business-email compromise attacks in 2024. In addition, 76% of BEC attacks involved the use of spoofed emails to deceive targets.

“Automated clearing house fraud is a rapidly growing threat as digital payments grow. While checks often account for higher total losses, ACH fraud is increasing in frequency and severity,” the Abrigo spokesperson says.

In addition to the rise in BEC, the rapid adoption of same-day ACH transactions, which totaled more than 1.2 billion payments in 2024, increases the speed at which fraud occurs, leaving less time for detection and recovery, Abrigo says.

Rising ACH volume is fueling the need for more security. In the third quarter of 2025, the ACH Network recorded 8.8 billion total payments valued at $23.2 trillion, up 5.2% in volume and 8.2% respectively, according to Nacha. Through the first three quarters of 2025, Same Day ACH volume was up 9.2% and value was up 16.7%.

“ACH activity continues to grow in volume, value, and complexity, and that expansion brings increased fraud exposure,” Ravi Nemalikanti, chief product and technology officer for Abrigo says in a statement. “We’re giving financial institutions greater intelligence and automation so they can stop fraudulent transactions before they impact customers.”

Payments-technology provider PayEngine will enable its softPOS tap-to-pay service with ServiceTitan Inc., a software developer for contractors in the HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other service sectors.

Santa Monica-based PayEngine says this means consumers will be able to pay their contractor invoices on the ServiceTitan platform by tapping a contactless card on their Android and iOS mobile devices without the need for an external card reader.

PayEngine provides two methods to enable softPOS. One is a companion app on a smart phone and the other is a software development kit to accept contactless payments directly within the developer’s app. SoftPOS transaction value is forecasted to have an 86.6% compounded annual growth rate between 2025 and 2030, according to eMarketer Inc. That compares to a 12.7% CAGR for the same period for mobile POS, which uses an external card reader.

Contractors in the field typically have had to key in card numbers when using a mobile phone or accept a check. SoftPOS eliminates having to key in credit and debit card numbers, which can reduce errors, security risks, and potentially garner better card-processing rates than a keyed transaction.

PayEngine says its tap-to-pay service functions as a middleware layer connecting software platforms to most payment processors. That means a company like Glendale, Calif.-based ServiceTitan can upgrade its payment experience without affecting existing processor deals, PayEngine says. ServiceTitan says it has more than 11,800 trade customers.

“We built PayEngine to be the bridge between legacy payment infrastructure and modern user experiences,” Spartak Buniatyan, PayEngine chief executive, says in a statement.

Phishers trying to manipulate recipients of their ill-intended emails overwhelmingly target Microsoft Corp., according to the Brand Phishing Report for Q2 2021 from Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Payment brands Chase, Apple Inc., and PayPal Holdings Inc. round out the report’s top 10 list for the quarter.

The results indicate the computing giant showing up in 45% of all brand phishing attempts  in the second quarter, dwarfing brands like Amazon (11%), Google (3%), Apple (1%), and PayPal (0.5%).

Phishing emails look authentic, but contains links that, if clicked, are designed to capture legitimate data. One example may have a “Your Subscription Has Expired” subject line and appear to come from Microsoft, but the link in the email goes to a fake Microsoft login page.

In a brand phishing attack, criminals try to impersonate the official Web site of a well-known brand by using a similar domain name or URL, as well as a design that mimics the genuine site, Check Point says. The scheme follows several paths to hook unsuspecting consumers. The link to the fake Web site can be sent to targeted individuals by email or text message, or a user can be redirected during Web browsing. Or the fake site may be triggered from a fraudulent mobile application.

“Cybercriminals are continually increasing their attempts to steal peoples’ personal data by impersonating leading brands. In fact, in the runup to Amazon Prime Day in [the second quarter], more than 2,300 new domains were registered about Amazon,” Omer Dembinsky, data research group manager at Check Point Software, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it’s the human element that often fails to pick up on misspelled domains or suspicious texts and emails, and as such, cybercriminals continue to impersonate trusted brands to dupe people into giving up their personal information.”

For Apple Inc. to become a disruptor in the rapidly growing buy now, pay later market, the technology giant is going to have to win consumer’s trust and demonstrate its BNPL platform is secure.

Reports of Apple developing a BNPL product, which the company has internally dubbed Apple Pay Later, surfaced Wednesday. The BNPL service will be linked to Apple’s Apple Pay mobile wallet. Each time they make a purchase, Apple Pay users will have the option to pay by making four interest-free payments every two weeks. Or they can pay over several months with interest.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which issues the Apple Card credit card, will be the lender behind the BNPL loans. Apple Pay Later is reportedly not going to be linked to Apple’s credit card.

The challenge facing Apple upon entering the hotly competitive BNPL market will be gaining consumers’ trust when it comes to taking out a BNPL loan, since Apple will control the payment terms, says Jared Drieling, senior director of market intelligence and insights for The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based consulting and research firm that tracks the BNPL market.

“Trust is a huge hurdle [facing Apple] especially when it comes to handling of payment information and providing the level of service consumers expect from their bank,” Drieling says. “As a consumer, I trust my bank, know it is secure and know that it will help me resolve issues when they arise. Apple is going to need to put a lot of effort into winning consumers’ trust.”

Key to winning that trust will be the marketing message that Apple develops. Competitors such as Klarna AB and AfterPay Ltd. have developed marketing messages that help earn trust, says Sheridan Trent, a research analyst for The Strawhecker Group.

Klarna, for example, uses celebrities and humor in its marketing to attract consumers to its brand. AfterPay uses a multi-faceted marketing campaign that promotes the company’s environmental friendliness and corporate ethics, in addition to positioning its BNPL offering as a way to achieve financial freedom.

“These are companies that have good marketing messages,” Trent says. “How Apple intends to build trust is the million-dollar question,”

One demographic expected to embrace Apple Pay Later is Apple Pay users, who already trust Apple when it comes to handling the payment data stored in their wallet. Indeed, Apple Pay users are far more likely to have used an installment plan for online purchases than those who are eligible to use Apple Pay but haven’t, Jaclyn Holmes, director of research for Auriemma Group, says by email. Among Apple Pay users, 33% say they’ve used an installment loan for an online purchase, compared to 10% of non-users, Holmes adds.

Demographics that will be tougher for Apple will be older millennials and up and those that have never tried Apple Pay, Trent says.

Apple will also have to provide a speedy signup process, as another potential speed bump is application abandonment due to the applicant thinking it’s taking too long to get approved. Holmes adds that BNPL providers that streamline the application process and have wide availability and a strong relationship with digitally savvy customers, all of which Apple does and has, should fare well.

“With the amount of competition in the space, they’ll need to market a competitive product to reach beyond their customer base, but there’s reason to believe they should be successful among their current users,” says Holmes.