“The surges in AI-powered fraud, including deepfakes and synthetic identity documents, is exposing critical flaws in traditional verification systems,” said Penny Chai, Vice President, APAC, Sumsub.
THE PHILIPPINES LEADS the list of countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region that has seen a sharp rise in synthetic identity document fraud cases.
This, as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more accessible, fraudsters are using AI-powered tools to construct synthetic identity documents, combining real data like a valid ID number with fictitious details to create a completely new, non-existent persona.
In sectors like fintech and healthtech, where digital onboarding and remote verification are common, these AI-generated documents are often used to impersonate legitimate users during Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. This allows bad actors to fraudulently access financial services or sensitive health records, posing serious risks to both service providers and end users.
“While fintech fraud is a familiar battleground, given the sector’s long standing exposure to financial crime and its evolution alongside crypto, the scale of fraud in healthtech signals a worrying new frontier. As more healthcare services go digital, the sector’s vulnerabilities are being exploited at pace, putting trust in the digital health system at serious risk,” said Penny Chai, Vice President, APAC, Sumsub.
“The surges in AI-powered fraud, including deepfakes and synthetic identity documents, is exposing critical flaws in traditional verification systems,” she added.
Globally, synthetic identity document fraud cases have surged by 195 percent, with APAC seeing an even sharper rise of 233 percent, underscoring the scale and sophistication of the threat.
Several APAC markets have recorded a sharp year-on-year rise in synthetic identity document fraud, or from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of this year, with particularly steep increases in:
Philippines: 291-percent increase
Hong Kong: 209-percent increase
Thailand: 188-percent increase
Singapore: 184-percent increase
Australia: 117–percent increase
“To protect themselves, businesses must move beyond outdated approaches and adopt multi-layered, adaptive defenses. At Sumsub, our focus is on helping businesses stay one step ahead of fraudsters by anticipating new attack vectors and delivering smarter, more resilient full-cycle verification solution.”
In response to the rapidly growing fraud risks in the region and across the globe, Sumsub will host its inaugural What The Fraud Summit to serve as a dedicated platform for industry leaders, regulators and fraud experts to have bold conversations and exchange actionable insights to beat the global fraudemic. The Summit will be held in Singapore from November 19 to 20, 2025.
Sumsub is a full-cycle verification platform that secures the whole user journey. With Sumsub’s customizable KYC, KYB, Transaction Monitoring, and Fraud Prevention solutions, you can orchestrate your verification process, welcome more customers worldwide, meet compliance requirements, reduce costs, and protect your business.
Sumsub has over 4,000 clients across the fintech, crypto, transportation, trading, e-commerce, education, and gaming industries.
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