The Philippines ranked high in digital fraud rate among nations analyzed by a recently released proprietary insights from TransUnion’s global intelligence network.

Specifically, the country’s fraud rate of digital transactions stood at 13.4% in 2024. This placed the Philippines as the second highest for the suspected digital fraud rate among markets analyzed – following India (19.0%) and preceding the Dominican Republic (10.9%).

“The average reported fraud loss among Filipinos last year according to our study was $768, exceeding P44,700 in local currency . While these figures are lower than the median of $1,747 (approximately P101,700) across global markets which TransUnion surveyed, the impact of falling victim to fraud remains significant,” said Yogesh Daware, chief commercial officer at TransUnion Philippines.

“Considering average monthly wages in the Philippines, the losses constitute at least over two months of salary for most Filipino households,” he added.

Additional data from TransUnion’s H1 2025 Update to the State of Omnichannel Fraud Report showed that the suspected digital fraud rate in the Philippines was higher than the global level of 5.4% in 2024 – consistently exceeding the global rate for the fifth consecutive year going back to 2020, when TransUnion’s analysis began.

The suspected digital fraud rate in the country also increased by 5% from 2023 – a stark contrast to the 8% decrease observed across the globe.

Among consumers surveyed across 18 countries and regions between November and December 2024, over seven in every ten Filipinos (74%) reported being targeted by an email, online, phone call or text messaging fraud scheme in the last three months – much higher than 53% across the markets surveyed. Moreover, over one third (34%) of Filipinos reported losing money due to any of the above mentioned tactics from November 2023 to December 2024, surpassing the global rate of 29%. These trends showed that Filipinos are facing greater risks from fraud, highlighting the need for stronger safeguards to prevent financial losses.

Based on TransUnion’s report, communities, which includes online dating and social media sites and forums, had the highest suspected digital fraud rate among industries for attempted transactions where the consumer was in the Philippines at 19.2% last year. These findings align with global trends as the industry also emerged with the highest suspected digital fraud rate (11.6%) worldwide. However, the suspected digital fraud rate from the Philippines in communities exceeded the global rate by 66%.

“The number of social media users in the Philippines amounts to 78% of the country’s population . The high volume of users interacting online opens doors for fraudsters to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. Despite a decrease in digital transactions in communities globally and from the Philippines last year, our analysis showed a growth in the number of transactions suspected to be digital fraud. This tells us that fraudsters are ramping up their attacks by targeting more victims and diversifying their tactics,” added Daware.

Following communities, the retail industry emerged with the second highest rate of suspected digital fraud (13.0%) for attempted transactions where the consumer was in the Philippines last year – higher than 7.6% globally. Although financial services remained among the top three industries most targeted by suspected digital fraud in the Philippines at 6.3%, this rate has significantly decreased by 35% year-over-year (YoY), even as the number of digital transactions in that industry increased by almost one fifth (17%).

This improvement might be attributed to the ongoing efforts from both the public and private sector to combat fraud in that industry recently. The Philippine government has been intensifying its campaign against scams and mandated financial institutions and other stakeholders to establish cooperative mechanisms . In support of these directives, TransUnion also launched the Fraud Industry Council (FIC) in 2024 to help drive a collective initiative across the local banking industry to strengthen consumer protection.

PIXABAY PHOTO