Financial services leads in AI identity readiness scorecard

Regula has launched an AI Identity Readiness Scorecard for financial services, a sector it says faces both the highest exposure to AI-assisted identity activity and the strongest level of preparedness among the industries surveyed.

The framework assesses organisations across four measures: AI exposure, visibility into AI-assisted interactions, identity verification strength and audit evidence. It is intended to show not only where AI-related identity risks are emerging, but also which sectors are adapting more quickly.

Financial services is the first sector analysed under the scorecard. The findings place the industry ahead of other surveyed sectors on all four metrics, while also showing heavier exposure to AI-assisted and automated identity activity.

On AI exposure, financial services scored 49, compared with 44 for the pooled group of other sectors. On visibility into AI-assisted interactions, it scored 63 versus 54. For verification capability, the sector scored 57 against 48, while audit evidence stood at 75 compared with 66.

The analysis suggests financial firms are dealing with AI-related identity issues across customer journeys, including onboarding, lending, account recovery and beneficiary changes. These are high-value identity events that can attract attackers using automation, synthetic identities and deepfakes.

Sector pressure

Regula argues that fraud methods often emerge first where financial rewards are highest, making banks and other financial institutions an early test case for broader market shifts. On that view, patterns now visible in financial services may spread to other industries as AI tools become more common in identity-related crime.

Rather than treating fraud volume as the only indicator, the scorecard examines whether organisations can recognise AI involvement, judge whether it is legitimate or suspicious, verify identity reliably and retain records for later review. That approach reflects a broader shift in fraud controls, as firms seek evidence not just that a check took place, but how a decision was reached.

Financial organisations are more likely than peers in other sectors to report mature liveness detection, human presence checks, synthetic content detection and the ability to reconstruct identity decisions. They also report retaining richer records of identity checks, reviewer actions and decision rationale.

Those records matter in sectors subject to regulatory scrutiny, internal audit demands and fraud investigations. The scorecard's audit evidence measure points to a gap between financial services and other industries in the documentation available after an identity decision has been made.

Broader implications

The findings come as companies across industries reassess identity controls in response to the spread of generative AI tools. Fraud teams have increasingly focused on software used to imitate documents, create synthetic personas or interfere with remote verification processes.

For financial firms, the issue is tied to operational risk as well as fraud loss. Account opening, lending and account recovery processes often depend on remote checks, meaning firms must determine not only whether a person is genuine, but also whether the interaction itself has been manipulated by automated systems or AI-generated material.

The scorecard's visibility measure addresses that distinction directly. Financial organisations were more likely to report that they could distinguish between legitimate software assistance and suspicious automation, and classify AI participation with confidence.

That may help explain why the sector leads the wider survey despite facing greater pressure. Constant exposure can force organisations to tighten controls faster, especially where failed checks can lead to direct losses, compliance problems or disputes over customer treatment.

"Financial organisations are not ahead because they face fewer AI-related identity threats. Quite the opposite: they encounter them more often. Their advantage is that constant pressure has forced them to develop better visibility, stronger identity controls, and more complete decision evidence. Financial services is simply the first sector to adapt to an identity landscape where distinguishing between human and machine participation is becoming a daily challenge," said Henry Patishman, Executive Vice President of Identity Verification Solutions at Regula.

The initial scorecard covers only financial services, but its comparative benchmarks are drawn from other surveyed sectors as a pooled group. The result is a picture of an industry under greater strain from AI-assisted identity activity while also showing stronger systems for detecting, assessing and documenting that activity than its peers.