Fraud Is Rising—and So Are Expectations for Payout Security

Security has always mattered in payouts, but Onbe's 2026 Payouts Landscape Report shows it has become something more than a checkbox requirement — it's now the single largest factor shaping whether a consumer trusts a payment at all. As fraud tactics grow more sophisticated, the line between "secure enough" and "not secure enough" keeps moving, and businesses that haven't kept pace are exposed in ways they may not realize.

Security is the top priority

Ninety percent of consumers now say security is important in how they receive a payout, up from 86% just a year earlier. That four-point jump in a single year is a meaningful signal: this isn't a slow-moving attitude, it's an expectation hardening in real time, likely accelerated by the steady drumbeat of data breaches, phishing scams, and payment fraud stories consumers see in the news. Security has moved from an assumed background feature to something consumers are actively evaluating before they'll accept a payout at all.

Checks are a major fraud vector

The data makes clear that legacy payment methods carry outsized risk. Checks remain the most fraud-targeted payment method in the U.S., with 58% of organizations reporting check fraud — nearly double the 30% reporting ACH fraud and well above the 25% reporting wire fraud, according to AFP data cited in the report. Checks are uniquely vulnerable because they travel through physical mail, carry printed account and routing information, and can be intercepted, altered, or counterfeited with widely available tools. Every check a business mails isn't just a slower payment — it's a payment method actively favored by fraudsters over faster, more secure digital rails.

Consumers want visible protections

Consumers aren't just hoping their payouts are secure behind the scenes — they want to see the safeguards. The features that most increase their confidence are multi-factor authentication (43%), biometric login (25%), and one-time passwords (18%). These are protections consumers already encounter daily in banking and shopping apps, and they now expect the same standard when a business is sending them money, not just when they're spending it. A payout experience without visible security signals reads as less trustworthy, even if the underlying infrastructure is sound.

Balancing security and experience

The challenge for businesses is that security and friction usually move in the same direction — more verification steps typically means more effort for the recipient. But consumer expectations don't leave room for that trade-off anymore. Payout solutions need built-in security that protects the transaction without adding friction that causes recipients to abandon the process or view the brand as harder to deal with than it should be.

That means security has to be engineered into the disbursement process from end to end, not bolted on as an extra step. Endpoint security integrated throughout the payout journey — from identity verification to transaction monitoring — reduces fraud risk while reinforcing, rather than undermining, consumer trust.

The takeaway

Security is no longer a differentiator reserved for financial institutions; it's a baseline expectation for any business that disburses funds. Consumers are actively watching for fraud signals, actively distrustful of the payment method most associated with fraud, and actively rewarding businesses that make protection visible. Businesses that treat payout security as an afterthought are not just risking fraud losses — they're risking the trust that payouts are supposed to build in the first place.

How Onbe embeds security into every payout

Onbe was built as a payments company first, which means security, compliance, and fraud controls aren't add-ons layered onto a generic platform — they're embedded into the disbursement flow itself. As a PCI DSS Level 1 service provider, Onbe operates under the highest tier of payment card industry security standards, and that rigor extends across every rail it supports: prepaid card, ACH, push-to-card, and digital wallets.

Onbe's platform incorporates fraud monitoring, identity verification, and transaction controls throughout the payout lifecycle — not just at account setup — so businesses get the layered protection consumers are asking for (multi-factor authentication, secure identity checks) without having to build and maintain that infrastructure themselves. That means clients can meet rising security expectations, move away from fraud-prone checks, and give recipients visible confidence in every payout, all while offloading the compliance burden to a partner built for exactly that job.