Plaid Study Flags Fraud Detection Gaps in Real-Time Payments

Payment fraud detected only after settlement can leave companies with fewer options to block transactions or recover funds. A joint study by PYMNTS and financial-technology company Plaid highlights the financial cost of delayed detection and argues that account and identity checks should occur earlier in the payment process, before money changes hands.

The study found that 57% of firms identify payment fraud only after transactions have settled. Companies facing high levels of uncertainty suffer twice the revenue losses recorded by other businesses. The report did not specify a dollar amount or survey date in the supplied findings, but recommended moving account and identity verification to the front of the payment flow to reduce fraud exposure.

Instant payments give businesses faster access to funds but leave less time to stop account fraud, misdirected transfers and errors before money moves. Experian and JPMorgan are responding by embedding account and payee verification into payment APIs and treasury systems, allowing companies to check recipient details inside their existing workflows rather than relying on separate, after-the-fact controls.

Experian, JPMorgan and other fintech and platform providers are now moving verification to the point before a payment is released, aiming to improve fraud interception and reduce costly mistakes. The latest report did not disclose transaction values, customer adoption figures or a firm rollout date. Still, the integrations signal that real-time account validation is becoming a core safeguard as corporate payments accelerate.

Instant and near-instant payment rails have compressed the window for accounts-receivable teams to validate identities, account ownership and fund availability before settlement. That makes early controls more important for payment-heavy middle-market companies, since returns, disputes and fraud become costlier to unwind after money moves. Research from PYMNTS Intelligence, produced with Plaid, shows that secure bank connections and identity tools are increasingly available, but their value depends on whether firms embed them upstream instead of relying on post-settlement reviews.

The May 2026 report surveyed 60 heads of payments at U.S.-based companies with annual revenue of $100 million to $1 billion, with fieldwork conducted March 18-30. It found 57% typically detected fraud or non-clearance only after settlement, while 17% caught problems before a transaction was initiated and 13% during authorization. Across the prior 12 months, 88% reported at least one accounts-receivable integrity issue, underscoring the gap between owning verification tools and deploying them early enough to prevent losses.

Payment fraud management has traditionally focused on recovering funds after a failed or unauthorized transaction, leaving businesses to absorb chargebacks, collection costs and operational delays. Plaid argues that moving controls upstream — by checking identity, account ownership and transaction risk before a payment is approved — can reduce losses while avoiding unnecessary declines, a shift with implications for accounts receivable and broader payment operations.

Plaid is promoting higher-quality, real-time identity and account data as the basis for better approval decisions rather than costly recoveries. Its documentation says Identity data is available for 97% of connections initialized with Auth, while roughly 80% of transactions submitted to Signal involve accounts previously linked to the Plaid Network. As of July 30, 2026, Plaid had not disclosed a projected dollar benefit or a timetable for deploying any new mechanism.

Instant payments give businesses rapid access to funds, but their near-irreversibility has made AI-enabled fraud, account takeovers and data breaches central concerns for banks promoting the technology. PYMNTS Intelligence said businesses often overestimate the risks of instant payments while overlooking that paper checks are more vulnerable to alteration or fraudulent cashing. This gap in security perceptions has slowed adoption.

The latest PYMNTS Intelligence research series found that 63% of businesses still using paper payments face check fraud, while 37% said instant payments can strengthen security. The data did not include the reports’ publication dates, transaction values or losses. The findings suggest banks seeking to accelerate adoption must address business concerns through identity verification, transaction monitoring and risk education.