Synthetic identities leave US lenders with $2.4 billion in fraud exposure

TransUnion’s report outlines how criminals exploit established customer accounts and trusted brands to commit financial fraud—primarily via account takeover, impersonation calls/messages, synthetic identities built from breached data and AI-generated content. The report highlights that 81% of suspected digital fraud in H1 2026 occurred during logins and transactions, cites an estimated $2.4 billion U.S. exposure to synthetic identity risk, describes attacker techniques and regional patterns, and warns that increasing scale and sophistication are straining business fraud controls.