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In today’s world of finance, AI is not just innovating — it’s redefining.
Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming the private banker that never sleeps. It’s analyzing portfolios, pre-empting market moves, accelerating loan approvals, and deploying virtual assistants with unsettling intuition.
For high-net-worth individuals and families, its convenience, amplified. But the same intelligence that builds smarter systems for wealth also equips smarter thieves.
When AI Becomes the Thief -The Deepfake CFO
Picture this: A CFO joins a video call with their finance team, calmly authorizes a $25 million transfer, and logs off.
Except — the CFO was never on the call.
In 2024, this exact scenario played out. Deepfake technology, powered by AI, recreated the CFO’s voice and likeness with unnerving precision. The scam was flawless. The money vanished.
This is not the future of fraud. It is the present.
So, what is a Deepfake — and why should it matter to the investment community?
Deepfakes are the synthetic offspring of deep learning: AI-generated content so realistic it blurs the lines between real and fake. A face that moves like yours. A voice that sounds like your spouse. A call that seems routine—until it isn’t.
For the wealthy, the risk is uniquely amplified.
Why HNIs and UHNIs Are Prime Targets
- You live public lives, digitally. Speeches, interviews, even candid family moments — all feed the AI models used to impersonate you.
- Your wealth is distributed. Instructions are given through assistants, family offices, wealth managers — often without a second glance.
- You are worth the effort. These aren’t spray-and-pray scams. They are precision attacks engineered to sound exactly like someone you trust.
The Shifting Geometry of Risk
In wealth management, security once meant access — passwords, approvals, signatures.
But deepfakes bypass access. They exploit trust.
They’re designed for the moments when your banker doesn’t hesitate, because it sounds like you. When your assistant acts, because your voice told them to.
And that’s the true danger: not the impersonation itself, but the timing, tone, and context. It’s not hacking. It’s theatre.
So, how do you protect your wealth, not just discreetly, but intelligently?
This isn’t about fear. It’s about evolution.
The modern threat landscape demands a new kind of governance — one that takes AI-driven deception as seriously as inflation or interest rate risk.
What You Can Do Today
- Audit your digital trust perimeter. Speak with your family office or advisor about a cyber-resilience review on how you verify identity and approve transactions, tailored to your unique risk profile
- Partner with institutions that invest in real-time AI fraud detection, not just strong firewalls.
- Implement verification protocols for financial instructions — even those that sound “just like you.”
A Final Thought
If your wealth can be moved by a voice that isn’t yours — or a call that never happened — then the definition of trust must change.
In 2025 and beyond, the question isn’t “is this secure?”
It’s “is this real?”
Protect your wealth in a world of synthetic deception. Speak with our advisory team on InformationSecurity@coronationmb.com or call 02012797640 or 02012797641
This blog post was written by Gloria Roberts.
Gloria Roberts is a Information Security Governance Assurance Analyst at Coronation Merchant Bank
She specialises in security standards management, identity and access controls, and organisation-wide security training. She is passionate about protecting digital assets and empowering teams to uphold best practices in information security.
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