NEW YORK--Fraud prevention is undergoing a fundamental shift at U.S. card issuers: What was traditionally viewed as a cost center is increasingly being treated as a way to keep cardholders, build trust and ultimately generate more revenue from those relationships.
That shift is one of the central findings of Building Trust, Fueling Growth, a new PYMNTS Intelligence report produced in collaboration with Visa Digital Processing Solutions. The study found 51% of issuers use fraud prevention and security enhancements as a strategy for building cardholder trust and increasing customer lifetime value, or CLTV.
The stakes are growing because fewer issuers are producing high-value cardholder relationships despite increased technology spending. The share of issuers generating high CLTV fell from 21% to 17% in one year even as the industry invested more in digital capabilities, AI and embedded finance. Large national banks saw their high-value share fall 15 percentage points, while small banks tripled theirs, according to the report.
PYMNTS defines CLTV as the total revenue a cardholder generates over the life of the relationship minus the costs of acquiring and serving that customer. The research is based on a network-agnostic survey of 500 executives in head-of-payment roles at U.S.-based bank and non-bank card issuers. The survey was conducted from Dec. 16, 2025, through Jan. 14, 2026.
The findings suggest fraud has become a particularly important part of that equation because its damage can extend well beyond the dollars stolen. A legitimate transaction mistakenly blocked by fraud controls, a poorly handled dispute or a scam that gets through can undermine a cardholder relationship built over years. Roughly half of issuers now use fraud prevention and security enhancements specifically to build trust and reduce churn.
The cost pressure is significant as well. More than four in 10 issuers rank fraud and disputes as their first- or second-highest platform operating cost. Cybersecurity and network threats were cited as a processor pain point by 36% of issuers in 2025, up from 30% in 2024, while insufficient fraud systems and high false declines jumped to 21% from 14%. Regulatory and compliance challenges remained the largest concern, rising to 46% from 43%.
Those pressures are even more pronounced in some higher-performing portfolios. Complaints about insufficient fraud systems among high-CLTV issuers nearly quadrupled from 7% to 28%. Among medium-CLTV issuers, cybersecurity concerns nearly doubled from 26% to 44%. The report argues those increases may reflect issuers pushing existing technology harder as their digital operations and fraud decisioning become more complex.
The divide becomes particularly striking when AI enters the picture. Card fraud detection and prevention is already the most widely adopted AI risk capability, with roughly six in 10 issuers across all CLTV groups deploying or actively enhancing real-time fraud detection.
Agentic Commerce
But the report found a much wider gap in how issuers are preparing for agentic commerce, in which AI systems can select products, recommend purchases and even complete transactions on behalf of consumers. More than two-thirds—68%—of high-CLTV issuers say enhanced security and fraud prevention are necessary for agentic commerce, compared with 47% of medium-CLTV issuers and 43% of low-CLTV issuers.
“High CLTV issuers draw a straight line from fraud prevention to agentic success,” the report said.
Investment plans show issuers are preparing for that future now. Among high-CLTV issuers, 41% identify real-time anti-fraud capabilities as a priority during the next 12 months, while 45% plan investments in scam detection and prevention. Across issuers overall, about four in 10 expect to add or improve scam detection capabilities, making it the most widely anticipated near-term fraud investment. Tokenization and dynamic CVV are each priorities for more than one-third of issuers, while 36% cite card-level fraud detection.
That emphasis reflects another change in the fraud battle: Scammers increasingly manipulate consumers into authorizing transactions themselves, activity that conventional models designed to identify unusual transaction behavior may struggle to catch.
The larger message is that issuers can no longer separate fraud strategy from customer strategy. Security that stops criminals but routinely blocks legitimate customers can damage the same relationships it is intended to protect. Conversely, effective fraud prevention, smooth dispute handling and stronger scam detection can help keep spending on the card—and could become even more important as consumers begin allowing AI agents to transact on their behalf.