Bailey and Georgieva warn cyber fraud could undermine public trust in banks
Bailey and Georgieva warn cyber fraud could undermine public trust in banks #
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned Wednesday that unchecked cyber-attacks could erode public confidence in financial institutions and drive people away from the formal banking system.
The two officials spoke on a panel focused on online fraud at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Bangkok, Thailand. The session coincided with the release of the Bangkok Blueprint, a policy framework developed with the Bank of Thailand that sets out 12 principles to help countries prevent, detect and respond to cyber-enabled fraud in digital financial services.
Bailey cited a series of recent incidents to illustrate the growing sophistication of AI-driven threats, including a cyber-attack on a French supermarket chain that caused refrigeration units to malfunction dangerously and the emergence of self-replicating AI agents capable of taking over personal devices. He argued that artificial intelligence risks “cracking the whole cyber risk world open” and called on major technology companies to take greater responsibility for scams proliferating through social media platforms and mobile apps. “If we don’t have trust in money, we don’t operate as a society,” Bailey said.
Georgieva drew on her experience growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria, recalling how distrust in state institutions led ordinary people to hoard cash at home rather than deposit it with banks. She warned that if cyber fraud continues without effective countermeasures, modern consumers could revert to similar behavior, keeping savings at home rather than entrusting them to financial institutions. Georgieva described cyber-enabled fraud as “a global challenge that no country or institution can tackle alone,” emphasising the need for coordinated cross-border responses.
The Bangkok Blueprint, co-developed with regional partners, covers domestic regulatory oversight and international information-sharing mechanisms. The IMF has separately flagged cyber-attack risks in its global financial stability assessments, identifying them as a compounding threat to system resilience at a time of elevated geopolitical and economic stress.
South Korea’s government recently ordered a probe into AI-enabled bank cyberattacks, and cybersecurity professionals and policymakers gathered at Sibos last month debated post-quantum encryption priorities.
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