At QED Conference 2026 in Zadar, Vedrana Miholić talked with Sean Neary from Nexi about AI fraud prevention, risk management, regulation, and the changing role of technology in protecting payments and customers.
Sean has spent 20 years working in fraud. Today, he is responsible for two sides of fraud and risk management services at Nexi: product and technology, as well as daily analytical operations, rules, and prevention.
In this Walk Your Talk episode, Sean explains why fraud management in the card industry has been more structured than in some other payment areas, how regulation can bring fraud higher on the business agenda, and why account-to-account payment fraud has historically been harder to solve.
The conversation also looks at how AI is changing fraud prevention. AI has been used in financial services for a long time, but it used to be expensive, complex, and available only to organizations with strong business cases and rare skill sets. Today, AI is more accessible, which creates new opportunities for companies, but also for fraudsters.
As Sean points out, fraudsters can now use AI at scale, without governance barriers. That means fraud teams are dealing with more complex, more unique, and more nuanced attacks. For them, AI fraud prevention is not only about efficiency. It is about closing the gap in a race that is getting faster.
The episode also touches on emerging risks such as token relay attacks, the convergence of fraud, cybersecurity, and technology, and the importance of acting instead of waiting. Sean shares how Nexi approaches this through agency, iteration, and the idea that everyone can be a change agent.
Finally, the conversation turns to financial literacy and social responsibility. As scams become more prevalent, from fake merchants and fake websites to impersonation and romance scams, organizations working in fraud and payments have an important role in helping customers and consumers understand what to look out for.
Watch the full Walk Your Talk episode with Sean Neary on the CROZ YouTube channel.
You can also watch another Walk Your Talk special edition QED 2026 episode featuring Nassim Nicholas Taleb here.
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