NEWS
Latin American banks see 155 % increase in scam attempts
Data from 36 Latin American financial institutions serving a combined total of more than 300 million customers shows that social engineering scams continue to plague the region – with scam attempts increasing 155 % in 2025.
Equally concerning, fraud attempts using remote access tools increased fivefold, reported malware attacks rose by 225 % and fraud cases originating from stolen devices surged by 344 %.
“ What we’ re seeing in Latin America is a predictable evolution in fraud MOs in response to the defenses banks have put in place,” said Tom Peacock, Director of Global Fraud Intelligence, BioCatch.
“ Fraudsters often rely on the most basic forms of phishing and credential theft to bypass basic fraud defenses, but when banks begin to improve customer authentication processes, criminals shift toward real-time social engineering and remote access to victims’ devices.”
BioCatch, which prevents fraud and financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, published these findings based on proprietary data from its customers in the region. Latin America also saw account takeover attempts nearly triple between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2026. Mexican banks saw the greatest spike in this area, with cases increasing by more than fourfold( 324 %).
While reported money mule accounts across Latin America increased by 42 % compared to the previous year, Argentina recorded a 27 % decline in mule activity. In May 2025, three Argentine banks announced the launch of BioCatch Trust Argentina, the hemisphere’ s first – and the world’ s second – real-time, interbank, behavior-based fraud and financial crime intelligence-sharing network.
GigaDevice expands in Brazil with ACP strategic distribution partnership across semiconductor portfolio
GigaDevice has strengthened its expansion in Brazil by appointing ACP Componentes Eletrônicos as a strategic distribution partner covering its full semiconductor portfolio across all 26 states.
The agreement includes Flash memory, specialty DRAM, 32-bit microcontrollers, sensors and analog products, ensuring broad market reach and consistent supply.
The collaboration supports GigaDevice’ s wider growth strategy across the Americas while reinforcing its position in one of the region’ s most dynamic economies. Brazil represents a major share of South America’ s industrial output and hosts a diverse manufacturing base spanning automotive, industrial machinery and electronics sectors.
ACP was selected for its technical expertise, strong customer relationships and proven logistics capabilities. The distributor currently delivers more than 60 million components each month to over 1,200 companies in hundreds of cities, providing reliability, speed and localized support.
According to GigaDevice leadership, Brazil requires partners that combine engineering depth with responsive service. ACP’ s infrastructure and market knowledge enable faster adoption of advanced semiconductor solutions at scale.
ACP leadership highlighted that GigaDevice’ s technologies are already driving innovation across multiple industries. With enhanced local availability and dedicated support, the partnership is expected to accelerate product deployment and strengthen supply chains.
Together, the companies aim to expand access to high performance semiconductor solutions, support OEM and tier-1 customers and drive sustained growth across Brazil’ s evolving electronics ecosystem. The partnership also reinforces supply resilience, improves time to market, supports design innovation and strengthens collaboration between global technology providers and local industry partners, positioning both companies for long term competitive advantage in Brazil. •
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