In September 2026, VIDA attended FEKDI x IFSE 2026 in Jakarta. For those following Indonesia’s fintech and digital economy developments over the past few years, the forum has become an important platform for regulators, policymakers, and industry players to assess the progress of the digital ecosystem and discuss the challenges ahead.
This year, one challenge is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: advances in deepfake technology are making identity fraud easier to carry out. Meanwhile, are fintech security systems keeping pace with these threats?
Indonesia’s digital financial economy continues to grow rapidly. More economic activities are moving to digital channels, and mobile transactions are becoming increasingly common, including in regions and among communities and businesses that previously had limited access to formal financial services.
This growth creates significant opportunities. At the same time, account opening, transaction approvals, and contract signing must all be carried out securely at scale, without relying on in-person checks by staff at every step.
For years, the process was relatively straightforward: verify someone's identity by checking their documents, then proceed with the transaction.
This approach worked because creating fake identities at scale required considerable time, money, and effort. Forgery also tended to leave traces, making it easier to detect.
AI is changing that. Fraud is becoming easier to carry out, and almost anyone can create convincing deepfakes without specialized technical skills. The risks are becoming increasingly apparent in digital account opening. Identity documents can be manipulated, while fake photos and videos can be used to fool facial verification systems. If these systems cannot detect such manipulation, fraudsters can exploit them to misuse other people's identities.
For VIDA, this highlights the need to strengthen security in account opening and transaction authentication as AI makes identity fraud increasingly convincing.
In fintech, deepfakes are not limited to realistic-looking fake videos. Fraudsters can use several techniques.
Each technique requires a different detection method. As the technology evolves, distinguishing genuine interactions from digital manipulation is becoming increasingly difficult.
However, the deeper issue is not deepfakes themselves. The challenge is that identity verification alone is no longer enough to determine whether a digital activity can be trusted.
Someone may successfully pass facial verification, but that check does not necessarily answer several important questions:
In other words, passing verification does not automatically mean the entire activity is secure.
The industry needs to rethink its approach to security. Verification should not be treated as a one-time check at the beginning of a process. Instead, it should be reinforced with multiple layers of checks to ensure that transactions are carried out by legitimate users.
For customers, this should not make the process more complicated. They should still be able to open accounts, apply for loans, or sign documents as usual. The difference is that, behind the scenes, institutions conduct checks at every stage. If suspicious activity is detected, the process can be reviewed before it leads to financial losses.
The goal is not to add more steps for customers, but to ensure that security does not depend on a single verification check. Each layer serves a different purpose, and together, they provide more comprehensive protection.
This need is becoming more pressing as more services move online, from finance and healthcare to education and public services. All these sectors need to ensure that the people accessing their services are authorized to do so.
That is why talent development, clear regulations, and collaboration between the government, regulators, and industry are essential to the digital transformation agenda. Innovation can only grow sustainably when trust and security are built in from the start.