The right fraud prevention solution validates your suppliers’ bank accounts in real time, covers your full geographic footprint, integrates natively with your ERP or AP system, and monitors third-party risk continuously — not just at onboarding. If a solution can’t do all four, it’s not enough. This guide walks you through exactly how to evaluate your options.
Download our Fraud Guidebook to get the full checklist of a perfectly handled fraud prevention project!
Key Takeaways
- In the UK, payment fraud losses exceeded £1.1 billion in 2024, with Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud accounting for over £450 million — and the threat is growing more sophisticated, not less (UK Finance Annual Fraud Report, 2025)
- Business Email Compromise (BEC) is now the #1 fraud vector, impacting businesses of all sizes — and is one of the primary routes through which UK supplier banking details are fraudulently changed
- AI-enabled fraud, including deepfakes and voice cloning, is now an active threat category organisations must account for in supplier evaluations — as demonstrated by the £20 million deepfake scam that targeted a UK-based multinational
- Manual fraud prevention is no longer viable at scale; automated, continuous account validation is the new baseline
- The best solutions offer real-time data, global coverage, native ERP integrations, and agentic AI capabilities
What features should you look for in a fraud prevention solution?
When considering fraud detection software, there are several factors you should take into account:
- Geographic coverage
- Ergonomics
- Real-time data
- Real-time actions
- Flexible integrations
- Pricing
- Solution security
- Customer support
Geographic coverage
UK organisations operate across a wide range of geographic locations. Consider your international suppliers, transatlantic customers, and foreign third parties. It is therefore important to find a fraud prevention solution that provides the geographic coverage you are looking for.
Having your anti-fraud platform operate in the right jurisdictions will determine the data you can access and the regulatory standards you can demonstrate compliance with.
For example, solutions like Trustpair can validate company information and banking information — such as where a company is registered and whether it appears on any sanctions or blacklists — in over 170 countries globally. This ensures customers get access to the most thorough data for fraud prevention, including full support for UK sort codes and account numbers.
Ergonomics
Ergonomics refers to the user experience. This is potentially the most important factor for your analysts and fraud officers who will be using the software every day.
So what features should you look out for when it comes to ergonomics?
- Can the programme be customised to the preferences of your team?
- Can you assign different team members with different responsibilities?
- Does the fraud management platform automatically comply with regulatory standards, or is this an extra job for your team?
- Is the right data instantly accessible? Think behavioural analytics, profiling programmes, and data from different geographic locations
Real-time data
Getting access to live data is one of the biggest benefits of using an automated fraud detection solution. The software helps companies detect fraud threats in real time and prevent mistakes that would otherwise be made.
It is important to check whether the information being fed into your dashboards is live, or whether there is a lag — particularly relevant in the UK, where Faster Payments settle in seconds and fraud must be caught before, not after, a payment is released.
Real-time actions
Whilst it is common for many fraud prevention solutions to work with real-time data, it is worth investigating whether your options also take action in real time. For example, programmes like Trustpair use machine learning and rule-based triggers to secure the procure-to-pay process. Payments are blocked automatically if suspicious activity has been identified.
This happens without the need for manual authorisation from a human in your team. It means you can run constant checks on your suppliers to find anomalies, and avoid absorbing fraud losses rather than preventing them.
Flexible integration modes to technical environments
Companies are as unique as a string of DNA — with varying structures, roles, responsibilities, and a specific set of tools. So why rely on a one-size-fits-all solution for the detection of fraud?
Performing fraud control with flexibility empowers teams to integrate their existing systems and technical environments with the chosen programme. This prevents a steep learning curve and keeps costs low during your digital transformation.
You can check this by heading to the integrations section of anti-fraud platforms to confirm the programme aligns with your current technologies. Trustpair integrates with most TMS, procurement, and ERP software including SAP ARIBA, Sage, Oracle, and legacy programmes — meaning it fits into the systems UK finance teams already use.
Pricing that fits your needs
Of course, you will need to find a fraud prevention solution that fits your budget. Whilst it may be tempting to choose the cheapest option, it is worth combining price with other factors in order to calculate true value.
For example, if you opt for a £100-per-month tool that cannot validate supplier bank account data, you are likely to need a second, more expensive programme later to fill the gaps — and in the meantime remain exposed to fraud losses and PSR reimbursement liability.
Security of the solution
Since you are trying to prevent data breaches and cyber attacks, the security of the anti-fraud platform itself is important. You can verify security measures by requesting the relevant certifications.
Trustpair is certified by ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, and PCI DSS, and is fully compliant with UK GDPR and FCA data security expectations. For UK organisations that are subsidiaries of US-listed entities, Trustpair also supports compliance with SOX reporting requirements.
Customer support
Often an overlooked feature, customer support is critically important. After all, how can you protect your payments if the system is hard to navigate and you cannot access support when you need it?
This factor is fairly straightforward to gauge when evaluating potential fraud prevention solutions:
- Is customer support available 24/7 or limited to standard working hours?
- Can you reach support via your preferred method (telephone, email, or live chat)?
- Is the level of support sufficiently thorough — technical rather than generic?
- How straightforward is deployment likely to be?
The right level of support will depend on your team’s size, technical capability, and the complexity of your payment workflows.
What are the steps to implement a fraud prevention solution?
Here is your step-by-step guide to implementing a fraud prevention solution:
- List your current and future needs
- Set your budget
- Benchmark possible solutions
- Test
- Validate and deploy
- Train your finance teams for onboarding
1. List your current and future needs
Listing your current needs may be straightforward, but envisioning your future needs takes more thought. Consider not only where your business is today — your current payment volumes, supplier base, geographic footprint, and ERP setup — but also where it is heading.
Are you expanding into new markets? Moving to a new ERP? Taking on more international suppliers? A fraud prevention solution needs to scale with you, not just cover your current state.
In the UK context, also consider your obligations under the PSR’s Confirmation of Payee scheme, FCA reporting requirements, and UK GDPR — all of which should inform the compliance capabilities you require from any solution.
2. Set your budget
When setting your budget, weigh the cost of fraud against the cost of prevention. In the UK, the average loss per B2B fraud incident can run into tens of thousands of pounds — and with the PSR’s mandatory APP fraud reimbursement scheme now in force, undetected fraud has direct financial consequences for your organisation beyond the initial loss.
A robust fraud prevention platform should be evaluated not just as a cost, but as risk mitigation and regulatory protection.
3. Benchmark possible solutions
With your needs and budget defined, create a shortlist of solutions and compare them against your requirements. Issue an RFP if your procurement process requires it.
Key criteria to evaluate include: real-time validation capabilities, geographic coverage (particularly important for UK organisations with international suppliers), ERP and TMS integration depth, continuous monitoring capabilities, and regulatory compliance alignment with FCA and PSR standards.
4. Test
Before committing, run a proof of concept with your top solutions using real supplier data. Assess accuracy, speed, false-positive rates, and how the platform handles UK-specific payment identifiers such as sort codes and account numbers.
Involve both your finance team and IT stakeholders in the testing phase to ensure the solution works effectively end to end.
5. Validate and deploy
Once testing confirms the solution meets your requirements, validate the results with your key stakeholders — treasury, finance, IT, compliance, and procurement — before rolling out across your full supplier base.
Ensure that your deployment plan includes a clear governance model: who has access, who receives alerts, who has authority to block payments, and how exceptions are handled.
6. Train your finance teams
The final step is onboarding your team to the new platform. Set up role-based access, establish alert escalation workflows, and ensure all relevant team members — particularly those in accounts payable and treasury — understand how to act on the system’s risk signals.
Vendor onboarding should also be reviewed as part of this process, ensuring that new suppliers are validated from day one rather than retrospectively.
Why is it crucial to invest in a fraud prevention solution?
Trying to tackle fraud without investing in fraud prevention solutions is like buying cheap paint — you will be forced to apply many more coats to get the same effect. Likewise, relying on manual work to prevent fraud consumes significantly more of your resources, whilst leaving you exposed to increasingly sophisticated threats.
The rise in B2B payment fraud
The major argument for anti-fraud platforms is that fraud attempts continue to rise. According to the UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2025, UK businesses lost over £1.1 billion to payment fraud in 2024 — and Trustpair’s own UK Fraud Study found that the majority of UK finance teams had experienced at least one fraud attempt in the past 12 months.
Fraudsters are innovative — constantly developing new ways to defraud businesses and exploiting emerging technologies. Trustpair research revealed that AI-enabled fraud, including deepfakes and voice cloning, has now become an active and growing threat category for UK organisations.
Even with new payment methods designed to be faster and more secure, the sophistication of modern fraudsters makes it increasingly difficult for companies to build countermeasures that stand up to cyber fraud.
The impact of B2B payment fraud
Some of the many impacts of falling victim to B2B payment fraud include:
- Financial losses
- Stressful working environment
- Reputational damage
Financial losses
UK businesses face significant direct financial exposure from payment fraud. With the PSR’s mandatory APP fraud reimbursement scheme now in force, payment service providers are also liable for reimbursing victims of authorised push payment scams up to £85,000 per claim — meaning the financial consequences of inadequate controls extend across the supply chain. After a successful fraud event, investors and board members tend to scrutinise internal controls more closely, compounding the operational disruption.
Stressful working environment
Having ineffective controls for fraud detection can create a stressful environment for employees. Finance teams that must always look over their shoulder — double or triple-checking perfectly valid payment instructions — face poor efficiency, increased anxiety, and higher staff turnover. Automated fraud prevention removes this burden, enabling teams to focus on higher-value work.
Reputational damage
Furthermore, the reputational damage caused by falling victim to B2B payment fraud can lead to further third-party vulnerabilities. Suppliers may be reluctant to work with you, with concerns that their payment details or shipments could be compromised. Customers may question whether you can keep their private information safe, particularly following a data breach. Research suggests that over one-fifth of customers would switch providers after a data breach — translating directly into further commercial losses.
Learn more about the impact of B2B payment fraud on UK organisations by downloading our latest UK Fraud Report!
Automated fraud prevention solutions are the most effective way to fight back
Take a look at the comparison below to see why automated fraud prevention consistently outperforms manual human checks:
| Manual fraud prevention | Automated fraud prevention solution |
|---|---|
| Takes a long time to complete checks and perform tedious data entry tasks | Uses detective controls to verify company information and banking information in under two minutes |
| Continuous checking is very difficult and expensive — you would have to pay a team member around the clock | Set to work even while you are away from your desk, with live warnings triggered when suspicious activity is recognised |
| Hard to access data in real time and prevent payments to suspicious entities | Accessible internal and external data sources for reliable and instant decision-making |
| Less confidence in the security of data | A more secure method for data protection, aligned with UK GDPR and FCA requirements |
As a market-leading fraud prevention solution, the Trustpair platform automates global account validation for your suppliers, controls for B2B payments, and enables collaborative risk management. Trustpair is a B2B payment fraud prevention platform, serving mid-market and enterprise clients across the UK and worldwide.
To conclude…
Protecting your business with fraud prevention software will help you verify suppliers’ account information and ultimately detect financial fraud before it causes harm. Anti-fraud platforms use analysis techniques, data authentication, and automated alerting to flag red flags and prevent various types of fraud — from invoice fraud and BEC to AI-enabled deepfake scams.
When deciding between different platforms for fraud mitigation, consider security certifications, flexibility of integration, geographic coverage, and pricing. Get in touch with Trustpair to request a demo today.