Breaking the cycle: A practical roadmap

Many banks and PSPs want to modernise their fraud architecture but fear the disruption.

Legacy systems are deeply embedded in workflows, regulatory reporting, audit trails and operational processes so replacing them feels risky and expensive.

A community-informed view of what “good” looks like helps break that deadlock. When you see how peer organisations have modernised in stages, without ripping out everything at once, the path becomes less theoretical and more operational.

Cyber exploits technical flaws. Fraud exploits human behaviour. Modern stacks must address both.

It sets realistic expectations, highlights which parts of the stack can move first, and shows where incremental wins appear early. Instead of a high-risk overhaul, the work becomes a controlled sequence of improvements that strengthen detection and investigation without destabilising critical reporting or compliance workflows.

A practical approach involves four phases:

1. Ingest everything first

Instead of rewriting existing fraud logic, begin by unifying data. Ingest logs, transactions, behavioural data, device information, identity checks and cyber telemetry into a search-powered data lake.

2. Provide analysts with unified visibility

This alone transforms efficiency. Investigators gain full context instantly without waiting for legacy vendors to integrate.

3. Gradually augment detection

Introduce enriched alerting, anomaly detection, entity resolution and cross-channel analytics on top of existing systems. Fraud models improve without disrupting operations.

4. Replace components only when ready

Over time, certain legacy systems may become redundant. But replacements are driven by evidence — not by guesswork.

This approach reduces risk, accelerates value and avoids the “big bang” transformations that often fail. Legacy stacks are not the problem — fragmentation is. Modernising the data foundation resolves that while retaining operational continuity.