AFP Survey: 58% of Organizations Report Experiencing Check Fraud in 2025
- Payments fraud remains widespread, with a slight decline from prior years
- Checks are still the most targeted payment method for fraud attacks
- Organizations plan to keep using checks, demanding stronger layered fraud defenses
This week, The Association for Financial Professionals announced the release of their 2026 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey report. The report, underwritten by Truist, has been utilized by the industry as the benchmark for payments fraud -- including checks.
Findings from the 2026 survey show that payments fraud remains pervasive, with 76% of organizations reporting attempted or actual incidents in 2025. Although this marks a slight decrease from 2024, the overall risk environment remains elevated. Larger organizations—especially those maintaining fewer payment accounts—continue to face increased exposure: 66% of organizations with revenue exceeding $1 billion report fraud losses, while the percentage is only 48% of organizations with revenues under $1 billion.
The 2026 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey was conducted in January 2026 among 465 treasury practitioners representing U.S. organizations of varying sizes and industries.
Findings from the Report
No one in the industry was surprised to learn for the third year in a row, checks continue to be the payment method most frequently targeted by fraud. In 2025, 58% of organizations reported experiencing check fraud—surpassing both ACH and wire fraud. Despite longstanding awareness of the risks, checks remain a persistent source of vulnerability for organizations working to manage and mitigate payments fraud. This is down from the past two years, where 63% of respondents reported that their organizations faced check fraud in 2024 and 65% in 2023.
Although checks are the payment method most frequently impacted by fraud, 72% of organizations that use them plan to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Among these organizations, more than two-thirds (68%) point to vendor requirements as a key reason for maintaining check usage.
Checks were followed by ACH debits (30%) and wire transfers (25%).
Additionally, the AFP survey highlights an evolving threat landscape where fraud rarely occurs in isolation. Business email compromise and social engineering often serve as the setup, manipulating vendor details, approval chains, or payment instructions, with fraudulent checks used as the final execution mechanism. Emerging AI‑enabled threats—including deepfake voice and video—further strain manual verification processes and traditional callbacks. In this environment, static rules and basic image review simply cannot keep pace with attacker innovation.
Takeaways from the Report
The major takeaway from the report: In spite of what the media says -- or even what the government does -- checks remain a major player.
We recently noted that, according to the Atlanta Fed’s summary of the 2024 Federal Reserve Payments Insight Business Study, nearly 80% of “Very Small” firms (under $1 million in revenue) and 83% of “Small” firms still use paper checks for business payments. Additionally, we pointed out that it's unlikely that small-to-medium will follow in the footsteps of the US Government to eliminate utilization of checks.
This means financial institutions need to provide their corporate customers with the technologies to better detect check fraud. As we pointed out, this is not limited to just payee positive pay solutions; it includes deploying technologies such as transaction monitoring, behavioral analytics, image forensic AI, consortium data, and dark web monitoring. Layering these technologies creates a strong defense against check fraud, ensuring that if a fraudulent check slips through one control, another layer is in place to identify the item and route it for further review.