HOW AI HELPS PROTECT YOUR MONEY (AND HOW CRIMINALS USE AI TO STEAL IT)

Introduction

Your bank is already using artificial intelligence (AI) to help protect your money.
Unfortunately, scammers are using similar technology to try to steal it.

This doesn’t mean technology is failing. It means both sides are getting better.
What matters most is understanding what your bank’s systems can protect you from, what they can’t, and where your own judgement is still the strongest defence.

How banks use AI to protect your money

Banks use AI to watch for unusual activity on your account.

The system learns what “normal” looks like for you, such as

• Where you usually shop
• How much you normally spend
• How often you make purchases
• When and where you use your card

If something suddenly looks very different, the system raises an alert.

For example:

• You usually spend £30–£50 at the supermarket, but suddenly there’s a £500 charge
• You’ve never used your card overseas, then there’s a transaction in another country
• Several purchases happen within minutes, when you normally make only a few per week.

This is why cards sometimes get blocked while you’re travelling. It can be annoying, but it’s designed to stop fraud quickly. It’s frustrating when it happens, I know, but it’s far better than discovering your account has been emptied without your knowledge.

What AI catches that people often miss

AI is especially good at spotting small changes over time.

One example is the financial abuse of older people.
If someone close to you starts quietly taking a little more money each week, a human might not notice. The changes can feel gradual or be explained away.

AI notices the pattern immediately. It doesn’t care who the person is. It only sees the numbers.

AI also catches stolen card use where criminals:

• Test the card with a small purchase
• Then gradually increase the amount

These patterns are often hard for a person to spot. Computers see them clearly.

Criminals have similar tools

The technology protecting you is available to criminals too. They do not have the same safeguards, controls, or accountability as banks, but they have more than enough technology to be convincing. They're using AI to write convincing phishing emails without the spelling mistakes that used to give them away, to generate fake bank documents that look completely legitimate or to make scam phone calls that sound natural and professional.

Voice cloning is frighteningly good now. Scammers only need a few seconds of audio - from a social media video or a voicemail message - to create a fake that is convincing enough that many people can’t reliably tell the difference. Same voice, similar speech patterns. Under pressure, many people genuinely cannot rely on their ears alone anymore.

They also use AI to find targets, scanning social media, public records, and data breaches to build profiles of people vulnerable to investment scams or romance fraud. The AI identifies patterns in successful scams and replicates them on an industrial scale.

What AI can't protect you from

Bank fraud detection only works on transactions after you've authorized them. If a scammer convinces you to transfer money either to "fix" a problem with your account, to "invest" in something lucrative, or to "help" a family member in trouble, then the AI can’t prevent it — and often can’t warn you either. The transaction looks legitimate because you approved it.

This is called Authorised Push Payment fraud, and it’s devastating because the payment is made by you, even though you’ve been deceived. The bank's AI might flag it as unusual, but when you confirm you want it to go through, it goes through. You've authorized it.

The AI that the bank uses can't see scams that bypass your account entirely. If someone convinces you to buy gift cards or transfer cryptocurrency, then that money has gone and no bank AI was watching.

When to trust alerts and when to verify

If your bank texts about a suspicious transaction you didn't make, that could be the AI doing its job. However, you should always respond using the number on the back of your card, not any number in the text. Scammers send fake fraud alerts.

Critical rule: if someone phones claiming to be from your bank about fraud, hang up and call back on the number from your card. Even if they mention specific transactions. Even if it sounds exactly like your bank's security process. Even if caller ID shows your bank's name. All of it can be faked.

Real fraud alerts never ask you to move money to a "safe account" or share security codes. Anyone asking for either is a scammer, regardless of how sophisticated they sound.

The honest assessment

Banks improve their AI detection constantly. Criminals improve their AI attacks just as fast. So this issue doesn't ever get solved - it's ongoing competition where both sides keep getting better.

Your bank's fraud protection will improve, but scam sophistication will improve equally. The fundamentals don't change though. Don't authorize payments under pressure. Don't trust incoming calls about your account. Verify everything through channels you initiate yourself. The AI helps, but your judgement remains your best defense. The technology's making the fight more sophisticated on both sides, but the basic principles of protecting yourself haven't changed - they've just become more important because the scams are getting harder to spot.

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