US lenders had an estimated $2.4 billion in exposure to synthetic-identity fraud risk at the end of June, according to findings reported by Help Net Security. The estimate measures potential lender losses, not losses already incurred; auto lending accounted for $1.5 billion of the exposure.
The report’s central security problem is that identity verification is not a one-time trust decision. Help Net Security reports that 81% of suspected digital fraud in TransUnion’s network during the first half of 2026 occurred during account logins and financial transactions, after accounts had been created. Attackers can also manipulate legitimate customers into authorizing transfers or use synthetic identities that pass onboarding checks across several services.
Synthetic identities combine real personal information, fabricated records and, increasingly, AI-generated documents or messages. According to the report, one fabricated identity could be used to obtain a buy now, pay later loan, a mobile-phone account and handset lease, a credit card and an online betting account. That cross-service reuse means a successful onboarding check does not establish that later account activity is legitimate.
The figures also expose a limit in approaches focused mainly on customer authentication. Help Net Security reports that scams and authorized fraud were the leading source of business fraud losses cited by 29% of surveyed fraud and risk decision-makers at large consumer-facing organizations across eight markets. Account recovery and service requests are additional targets for attacks against secondary authentication processes.
A separate deployment reported by Biometric Update illustrates one way organizations are adding checks at onboarding. Malaysian identity provider Innov8tif integrated the government-backed MyDigital ID with its EMAS eKYC platform, combining a national-record check with document authentication and facial biometric verification. Innov8tif says the integration is intended to address synthetic identities, forged documents and presentation attacks.
That kind of layered verification can strengthen initial due diligence, but the available reporting does not establish how effectively the deployment detects fraud after account creation, how it performs when the national identity service is unavailable, or what operational costs enterprises will incur. The TransUnion findings indicate that those post-onboarding controls remain a separate requirement.