Capco survey finds majority of Canadians worried about data security as the Real-Time Rail approaches
Nine in ten Canadians are worried that their personal online data could be used to impersonate them or to reveal the answers to their security questions — a concern that has sharpened as AI-driven fraud grows more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Those are among the key findings of a new survey of 1,000 Canadian adults conducted by Capco, a Wipro company and global management and technology consultancy.
The research accompanies Capco's Canada Payment Fraud report, released as Canada prepares to launch its Real-Time Rail (RTR), a new payments infrastructure that will enable instant, account-to-account transfers around the clock.
Card or card data theft (45%), identity theft (45%) and account takeover (41%) are the fraud types respondents find most troubling.
More than a third, or 36%, said they had been targeted by attempted payment fraud in the previous two years. Of those, 37% noticed a purchase they did not make, 32% identified a phishing attempt, and 20% experienced an attempt at card or card data theft.
The results carry direct relevance for Canadian mortgage brokers and lenders navigating the realities of digital financial security, who routinely manage sensitive client financial data and facilitate large payment transactions, making both them and their clients potential targets for the fraud types the survey identifies.
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Deepfake concerns expose a guidance gap
Nearly eight in ten respondents (78%) said they are concerned about the impact of deepfake technology on voice biometrics and facial identification.
Of those, 45% worry these authentication methods will come under future threat, 27% consider them not entirely secure, and 6% already view them as insecure.
Despite that widespread anxiety, more than half of respondents (52%) said they had not been provided with — or could not recall receiving — any guidance from their financial institution about the deepfake threat.
The gap is more pronounced among older Canadians: 60% of those aged 55 to 65 reported receiving no such guidance, compared with 48% of those aged 25 to 35.
"Payment fraud has become increasingly globalised, industrialised and technology-enabled, making it one of the most significant challenges facing Canadian consumers and the country's payments ecosystem. As Canada prepares for the launch of the RTR, fraud prevention will remain a top strategic priority across the industry," Gaelan Woolham, Partner and Canada Head of Financial Crime, Risk, Regulation and Finance at Capco, said.
"To stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics, organisations must be clear on emerging threats, customer concerns, experiences and expectations — and be ready to leverage advanced technologies, enterprise data and AI capabilities to prevent and respond to fraud in real time."
Security outweighs convenience — but friction still frustrates
When choosing a financial institution for payment services, respondents ranked security (60%) and advanced fraud protection (46%) as their two most important considerations — ahead of customer service quality (39%) and transaction speed (36%).
Yet 33% find complex passwords frustrating, and 27% say the same about multi-factor authentication codes, highlighting the persistent tension between robust protection and usable design that financial technology providers serving the Canadian mortgage market are under growing pressure to resolve.
"The latest AI technologies are already showing their value when it comes to improving detection rates, identifying risk signals across operational, functional and data silos, and enabling accelerated, near real-time prevention," Harley Wonder, Managing Principal, Canada Financial Crime, Risk, Regulation and Finance at Capco, noted.
"In addition to deploying AI, institutions should reappraise all components of their fraud prevention strategy from customer onboarding and education to collections and disputes. Customer education must become more actionable and be brought closer to the potentially insecure activity using mechanisms such as just-in-time messaging."
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