A report by credit insights firm TransUnion has found that fraud losses in the Philippines last year were far lower than global levels, although the country recorded a higher-than-average rate of cases, which indicates that scams here are driven more by volume.
The “Top Fraud Trends” report for the first half of 2026 surveyed 281 Philippine consumers and found that the median amount stolen by fraudsters last year was $850, or about P50,000. That is well below the global median of $1,671, or roughly P98,000.
That is despite the Philippines ranking among the markets with the most widespread digital fraud exposure across the 18 countries and regions surveyed. The firm said the country’s suspected digital fraud rate – activities flagged by TransUnion clients as fraudulent indicators and violations of corporate policy – reached 4.1 percent in 2025, exceeding the global rate of 3.8 percent for the sixth straight year.
At the same time, 72 percent of surveyed Filipinos said they had been targeted by digital fraud attempts – online, email, phone, and text messages – between August and December last year, compared with 53 percent globally.
Yogesh Daware, chief commercial officer at TransUnion Philippines, said the findings suggested that fraud in the country “is driven more by scale than severity.”
“These insights point to a landscape characterized by more frequent, lower value scams across digital channels and industries, rather than isolated big ticket cases,” Deware said. “The breadth and frequency of these incidents make digital fraud a persistent concern.”
Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed social engineering schemes – where criminals manipulate victims into revealing sensitive information that enables fraudulent transactions – emerged as the country’s most prevalent cybersecurity threat last year, accounting for 76 percent of total fraud losses.
“With fraud risk in the Philippines highest at the account login stage, and phishing and other scams primarily focused on stealing credentials, fraud in the Philippines is fundamentally an identity issue,” Deware said.
If it weren’t for the smaller amounts being stolen from Filipinos, our widespread exposure to digital fraud would be a much bigger problem. However, it remains a significant problem if one considers that the percentage of the amounts involved could already be a large portion of someone’s income or savings. The fact is that too many of our countrymen are being successfully targeted by scammers, and something has to be done about it.*
