Three-quarters of French banking executives (79 per cent) believe they lose over $5 million a year due to fraud, according to a new survey commissioned by financial crime specialists BioCatch.

Of the 100 fraud and financial crime leaders at French banks surveyed in this research, 44 per cent said the financial losses caused by fraud only continue to grow.

In addition to quizzing French banking leaders about the financial losses of fraud, BioCatch also surveyed them on the types of fraud and scams they’re most concerned about. The top two are social engineering scams, which prey on lapses in human judgment, and a form of money laundering called money mules.

Overall, scams were the biggest concern for 40 per cent of French banking leaders. This is a surprisingly low number that BioCatch attributes to the fact that French banks aren’t currently compelled by law to pay customers affected by scams.

With this legal trend likely to change in the future, 55 per cent of French banking executives said their institutions were proactively preparing measures to reimburse scam victims in full. That may seem significant, but in other European countries, 73 per cent of respondents said they are preparing to comply with changes to scam reimbursement laws.

Although French banks are lagging behind their European peers in updating scam reimbursement policies to make them compliant with looming regulatory changes, 67 per cent have issued payments to half of their customers who fell victim to a scam.

Scams aren’t the biggest fraud-related concern for all French banking executives, though. Twenty-seven per cent are more focused on preventing money laundering. Biocatch said it’s a top-three concern for two-thirds of respondents.

Surprisingly, when it comes to dealing with the effects of increased fraud and scams, French banks aren’t most concerned about financial costs. Seventy-nine per cent believe reputational damage is more concerning. That’s compared to the European average of 69 per cent and the global average of 71 per cent.

Matthew Platten, France country manager at BioCatch, said: “French banks today must protect their customers from a deluge of increasingly sophisticated social engineering scams, from faux conseiller bancaire schemes to AI-enabled impersonation attacks, while also rooting out sprawling, inter-bank networks of money laundering accounts.

“The expansion of instant payments and rapidly evolving regulatory expectations have raised the stakes considerably. Mandatory reimbursement is coming to Europe. Delivering preventive, real-time controls while still maintaining user experience will be central to maintaining customer confidence in an increasingly complex threat environment.”

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