Key takeaway: Lenders and processors should recognize that most suspected digital fraud in TransUnion’s data happens after account opening, at login and during transactions. Controls concentrated at onboarding will miss most of the activity the company is tracking.
TransUnion’s “Fraud in the Age of Continuous Trust” report found that US lenders carried an estimated $2.4 billion in synthetic identity fraud exposure as of June 2026. Auto lending accounted for the largest share, at $1.5 billion. Help Net Security reported these findings on October 26, 2026.
TransUnion said the $2.4 billion figure represents potential lender losses rather than losses already realized. Synthetic identity fraud blends real and fabricated identity data to build accounts that behave normally until a lender underwrites them. TransUnion’s digital fraud detection network data showed that 81% of suspected digital fraud in the first half of 2026 occurred during account logins and financial transactions rather than at account opening.
Industry fraud defenses have traditionally concentrated at the onboarding stage. The pattern varied by region. In TransUnion’s European network, 88% of suspected digital fraud occurred after account creation. In its African client base, 94.3% of suspected digital fraud involved account access. In Canada, stolen credentials, phishing, and social engineering drove logins to the largest share of suspected fraud.
A companion survey of fraud and risk decision-makers at large consumer-facing organizations across eight markets found that scams and authorized fraud were the leading source of business fraud losses. 29% of respondents cited this as their top concern. Forty-two percent of respondents said rising fraud scale or sophistication was putting significant or severe pressure on their organizations.
Why it matters: The shift toward login and transaction-stage fraud suggests that synthetic identity fraud and account takeover fraud increasingly survive onboarding checks. These schemes surface later, once a lender or merchant already treats the account as trusted. That pattern argues for continuous authentication through the life of an account rather than a one-time check at signup. This matters particularly for longer-cycle credit products such as auto loans, where synthetic identity exposure concentrates.
Sources: Help Net Security, and TransUnion, “Fraud in the Age of Continuous Trust