According to TransUnion’s H1 2026 update on Tuesday, South Africa had the highest rate of suspected digital fraud among African countries analysed, with 3.0% of transactions involving consumers in South Africa being suspected of digital fraud during 2025 – slightly below the global average of 3.
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According to TransUnion’s H1 2026 update on Tuesday, South Africa had the highest rate of suspected digital fraud among African countries analysed, with 3.0% of transactions involving consumers in South Africa being suspected of digital fraud during 2025 – slightly below the global average of 3.
TransUnion's report said that in 2025, the median reported fraud loss among South African consumers who said that they had lost funds to digital fraud (email, online, phone call and text messages) in the previous year was R11,055 – the second highest in Africa after Kenya and well below the global median of R27,879.
The report indicated that South Africa’s digital fraud landscape has become more complex, with generative AI likely accelerating the scale and sophistication of criminal activity. “This has enabled fraudsters to target both consumers and businesses with greater precision and speed.”
The report said that South African consumers are increasingly facing co-ordinated, identity-driven and cross-channel attacks similar to those seen in mature digital economies.
“As a result, digital fraud has shifted deeper into the consumer journey: one third (33%) of South African consumers who said they lost money from digital fraud in the last year reported those losses stemmed from third-party seller scams on legitimate ecommerce platforms," it said.
“This indicates that losses are not occurring because consumers transacted in a suspect or unsafe environment – but because fraudsters successfully embedded themselves into environments that appeared credible, familiar and trusted,” added the report.
Amritha Reddy, senior director of fraud product management at TransUnion Africa, said that this signals a market where criminals are exploiting established trust, active accounts and verified digital relationships.
She said this is a clear break from global fraud patterns typically dominated by phishing and vishing – fraudulent phone calls or voice messages designed to deceive consumers into sharing sensitive information or sending money.
Reddy added that criminals are weaponising both consumer trust and emerging technologies.
“As GenAI accelerates the sophistication and scale of criminal operations, the threat landscape is evolving faster than ever for consumers and businesses," she said.
"Addressing this requires a new generation of identity-centric defences that combine advanced analytics, adaptive authentication and multilayered digital fraud detection. Organisations must match fraudsters’ technological innovation to stay ahead of rapidly changing schemes.”
The report said that the suspected digital fraud rate for attempted transactions where the consumer was in South Africa declined from 4.3% in 2024 to 3.0% in 2025, a trend also observed globally.
“Nevertheless, this decrease does not necessarily indicate reduced criminal activity; rather, it may reflect a shift toward AI-enabled tactics designed to maximise return on investment.
The report added that South Africa is one of the few markets where the highest rate of suspected digital fraud attempts happen at account login, with 3.0% of account login attempts being flagged as potentially fraudulent, compared to 2.4% at account creation and 0.7% of financial transactions.
“This trend suggests that attackers are increasingly trying to compromise existing accounts, in contrast to other countries globally where new account creation is a key focus for fraudsters.”
Reddy said that this inversion tells a powerful story that criminals in South Africa are now targeting access using compromised credentials, SIM-swap-enabled entry and social engineering to take over existing accounts.
“This means that vendors and financial institutions need to expand their fraud prevention strategies beyond the new customer onboarding phase, continuing to implement verification throughout the consumer lifecycle – but without the unnecessary friction that will see genuine consumers seeking alternative sites.”
Reddy added that digitalisation has improved access to public services, but it has also created new risks for fraud.
“Fraudsters are leveraging official government branding and service-related messages to impersonate the state and deceive citizens.”
Reddy concluded that South Africa has entered an advanced fraud phase where criminals exploit trust, operate across channels and target established digital relationships rather than weak entry points. “Fraud is increasingly occurring inside legitimate marketplaces and impersonated public services, while risk remains consistently highest at login, as it has been on an annual basis.
“As criminals increasingly weaponise new technologies to carry out sophisticated scams, it’s more important than ever for consumers to safeguard their personal information and to review their credit reports regularly,” she said.
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