The most dominant types of identity fraud and the level of risk in Africa, according to VerifyNow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe report detailed that financial services bear the greatest impact from identity fraud in South Africa, with total gross losses reaching R1.88 billion in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Globally, identity fraud is estimated to cost the financial services sector more than $11 billion annually, but the healthcare sector suffers the greatest financial losses per incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Per incident losses in this sector could reach $10.93 million, the highest of any industry in 13 consecutive years, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, global e-commerce fraud losses are projected at $48 billion, while Buy Now Pay Later platforms see fraud rates 2 to 3 times higher than traditional payment methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africans were the third most likely nationality in Africa to have their identity stolen, with VerifyNow giving it an 85% risk rating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The legacy Green ID book is the single biggest vulnerability \u2014 non-biometric, easily forged, still held by millions,” it stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is responsible for the 400% surge in impersonation fraud, per the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service. The Smart ID transition is progressing but remains incomplete in rural areas.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The highest risk was in Nigeria, where synthetic fraud attempts using AI increased 192% year on year, and biometric spoofing was the dominant form of identity fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fraudsters were still exploiting gaps in Nigeria’s national identity number system, even though it required mandatory biometric identification using fingerprints and facial images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Fraudsters can now use AI tools to create convincing fake documents, generate synthetic identity profiles, clone voices for vishing attacks, and produce deepfake video,” said VerifyNow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI tools reduce the technical skill required to commit sophisticated fraud and allow attackers to target businesses more quickly and at a greater scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Fraud has changed. Criminals are not only trying to break into systems anymore. They are trying to pass as real people,” said VerifyNow CEO, Ru Foster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“For businesses, this means identity verification can no longer be treated as a once-off admin step. It needs to become part of the fraud prevention layer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Processes such as real-time identity verification, biometric face matching, and passive liveness detection can help companies resist identity fraud attempts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Impersonation fraud using green ID books has increased by 400% year on year in South Africa, as fraudsters use AI to exploit the legacy identity system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":648638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6535,104747,100111,94351,105402,78048,105400,105401],"class_list":["post-649089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-department-of-home-affairs","tag-financial-fraud","tag-green-id-books","tag-identity-fraud","tag-impersonation-fraud","tag-leon-schreiber","tag-ru-foster","tag-verifynow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649089"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649289,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649089\/revisions\/649289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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