Singapore – Visa unveiled its ‘Singapore Security Roadmap 2026 and Beyond’, a strategy aimed at strengthening the resilience of the city-state’s digital payments ecosystem against an increasingly sophisticated fraud and scam landscape.
The update comes as a study found that close to seven in ten Singapore residents trust digital payments, even as scams and fraud continue to test that confidence. The same study found that 42 per cent of Singapore residents have encountered scams, although only 8 per cent reported losing money as a result.
Fraudsters, Visa noted, are increasingly harnessing artificial intelligence, automation and social engineering techniques to exploit trust and manipulate consumer behaviour, marking a shift from traditional unauthorised fraud towards authorised payment scams.
In response, Visa’s updated roadmap sets out six strategic priorities spanning the entire payments value chain. These include strengthening cybersecurity to anticipate emerging threats, advancing authentication for seamless and secure digital experiences, and enabling safer transactions through tokenisation to reduce exposure of sensitive payment credentials.
The roadmap also covers transforming e-commerce checkout experiences to improve convenience and consumer confidence, leveraging foundational standards and risk programmes to improve network performance and security, and building a resilient payments ecosystem to combat fraud and scams in the AI era.
According to Visa, it currently deploys more than 150 AI and machine learning models globally to help identify fraud, optimise authentication and protect digital payments. The company said it will continue investing in advanced AI-powered fraud detection capabilities, tokenisation, and authentication innovations such as passkeys and biometric authentication.
Visa added that it is also expanding scam prevention solutions across both card and account-to-account payment environments. This builds on the original Singapore Security Roadmap, which the company launched in 2019.
“Trust underpins every digital payment experience and maintaining the confidence for consumers and businesses is critical as Singapore’s digital economy continues to grow. As AI transforms commerce and creates new opportunities, it also raises the stakes in the fight against fraud and scams”, said Adeline Kim, Group Country Manager for Regional Southeast Asia & SVP, Global Clients, Asia Pacific, Visa.
Since launching our Singapore Security Roadmap in 2019, we have worked closely with industry partners to advance capabilities such as risk-based authentication and tokenisation, helping make payments safer and more seamless. This updated roadmap reflects the evolving threat landscape and reinforces our commitment to investing in the technology, intelligence and partnerships needed to stay ahead of emerging risks”, continued Kim.
By working together across the ecosystem, we can enable innovation, strengthen resilience, and ensure consumers and businesses continue to participate in the digital economy with confidence”, stated Kim.
Beyond its own technology investments, Visa said the roadmap underscores the importance of ecosystem-wide collaboration. The company will continue working with regulators, financial institutions, merchants, fintechs and industry partners to strengthen cyber resilience, improve fraud intelligence sharing and accelerate the adoption of secure payment technologies.
That emphasis on collaboration has drawn support from anti-scam advocates. “Scams and fraud continue to evolve at an unprecedented pace, making collaboration across industry, government, and the private sector more important than ever”, said Brian D. Hanley, APAC Director, Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA).
“Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) welcomes Visa’s Singapore Security Roadmap and its commitment to advancing collective action, innovation and intelligence sharing to strengthen trust and resilience across Singapore’s digital payments ecosystem”, Hanley further explained.
The roadmap’s release comes at a pivotal moment for Singapore, where digital payments continue to grow in tandem with broader digital economy expansion. At the same time, scams and cybercrime remain among the most pressing threats facing consumers and businesses in the city-state.
