Alterya

Alterya identified a critical gap in fraud prevention: authorized push payment (APP) fraud, where scammers manipulate users into voluntarily sending money to attacker-controlled accounts. Financial institutions and crypto platforms detected the transactions only after funds disappeared, making recovery nearly impossible. Retail customers and small business owners experienced this most acutely, losing thousands in minutes to convincing social engineering attacks. The problem was measurably severe—UK banks alone reported £455 million in APP fraud losses annually by 2023, with detection rates lagging far behind incident rates. Existing solutions focused on transaction monitoring and post-facto analysis, leaving the critical window between user manipulation and fund transfer unprotected. Early validation came when financial institutions immediately recognized the value of real-time scam detection during user interactions. Crypto exchanges, facing even higher fraud rates and regulatory pressure, became eager adopters. This urgent demand from multiple customer segments confirmed that Alterya's approach—intervening before users completed fraudulent transfers—addressed a genuine, measurable market need that existing tools systematically failed to solve.