BioCatch, a fraud and financial crime prevention company that identifies threats by analysing patterns in human behaviour, has published new data showing a sharp rise in impersonation scam attempts across the U.S. banking sector.
The findings, drawn from 292 financial institutions serving a combined total of more than 280 million customers, show attempted impersonation scams more than doubled in the U.S. between 2025 and 2026, marking a 130% increase.
Impersonation scams typically involve fraudsters posing as celebrities, relatives, or representatives of legitimate organisations, exploiting that perceived familiarity or authority to convince victims to hand over money under false pretences.
Despite impersonation scams being the most frequently reported category, the data shows investment scams remain by far the costliest for victims.
The FBI has previously estimated that investment fraud losses across the U.S. topped $8.6bn in 2025, and BioCatch’s own customer base, which includes three of the four largest U.S. banks by assets, recorded $46m in attempted investment fraud losses. Purchase scams followed as the second most costly category at $28m, with law
legal impersonation scams close behind at $22m.
BioCatch prevents fraud and financial crime for its clients by using behavioural analysis to detect suspicious patterns.
The report also flagged several other emerging trends.
Phishing attempts among BioCatch’s U.S. customers climbed 50% year-on-year, while 70% of reported account takeover sessions occurred after 5 p.m.
Domestic devices were responsible for the vast majority of fraud attempts, at 83.9% between June 2025 and May 2026, a pattern attributed to the continued rise of social engineering scams in which victims are manipulated into authorising transactions themselves regardless of where the fraudster is based.
Separately, digital banking sessions involving a remote-access tool rose by 45% over the past year, a concerning trend given RATs can grant fraudsters unauthorised access to banking apps, email accounts, and other sensitive personal data.
BioCatch Fraud Intelligence Research Analyst Gary Patterson said, “While impersonation scams were the most commonly reported scam type to the Federal Trade Commission last year, they were not the most costly. Investment scams continue to account for the majority of scam losses in the U.S., with scammers promising high returns on a range of different investment classes, often employing spoofed websites and fake broker platforms to create a false sense of urgency.”
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