.png)
CPD 20 - Fraud, Identity, and Risk Management: Building Trust Without Friction with Iremar Brayner
- Julien Haye
- Feb 21
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
In this episode of RiskMasters, Julien Haye dives into advanced risk management and fraud prevention strategies with Iremar Brayner, focusing on high-growth, high-volume digital platforms. Drawing on over 17 years of experience, Iremar explains why fraud strategy cannot be generic, the critical role of identity as a strategic control, and the importance of embedding risk management practices into product functions rather than treating them as policing layers.
Listeners will gain insights into balancing security with user experience, navigating the practical trade-offs inherent in enterprise risk, and leveraging adaptive, data-driven frameworks to scale trust effectively. The conversation also highlights risk leadership approaches that integrate collaboration across fraud, product, engineering, and legal teams.
Key Themes & Takeaways
Fraud is contextual, not universal: Effective fraud strategies flex by product design, payment flows, and user behaviour.
Identity as a strategic control: Identity verification shapes trust, conversion, and loss prevention when designed intelligently.
Risk as a product capability: Strong outcomes come from deep collaboration between fraud, product, engineering, and legal.
False positives matter as much as fraud loss: Customer friction is a risk in its own right.
Scaling trust in marketplaces: High-volume platforms demand adaptive, data-driven controls rather than static rules.
Discussion Highlights
Why one-size-fits-all fraud frameworks fail in practice
Designing onboarding that protects the business without driving customers away
The role of biometrics, 2FA, and analytics in modern fraud defence
Managing fraud risk while supporting growth targets
Building and leading multicultural fraud teams at scale
Who Should Listen
Fraud and financial crime leaders
Risk, compliance, and trust & safety professionals
Product and engineering leaders working on onboarding and payments
Executives balancing growth, conversion, and loss prevention
Disclaimer
The views shared by Iremar Brayner are his own and do not represent those of G2A or any other organisation.
🎧 Listen now on:
Or your preferred podcast platform
📌 More about Iremar Brayner
Iremar Brayner is a senior fraud, risk, and payments professional with 17 years of experience leading fraud prevention, KYC, transaction monitoring, chargebacks, and AML across fintech, ride-hailing, retail, banking, and digital marketplaces. He is currently Head of Fraud Prevention at G2A.com, where he focuses on combining data-driven insight, operational excellence, and scalable controls to reduce risk while enabling strong customer experiences, following senior roles at PayPal, DiDi, FARFETCH, MetaMap, Zettle, and will bank.
📝 Related Resources:
🎓 Download your CPD certificate:
Recap Blog Post - Fraud as Strategy: Building Trust Without Friction
Fraud Isn’t a Control Problem. It’s a Design Problem.
Fraud prevention is often framed as a defensive discipline. Stop bad actors. Reduce losses. Tighten controls.
In this episode of RiskMasters, Iremar Brayner offers a more mature view. One shaped by nearly two decades inside payments, marketplaces, fintech, and ride-hailing platforms operating at global scale.
His core message is simple.
Fraud strategy only works when it reflects how the business actually functions.
Why Fraud Can’t Be One-Size-Fits-All
Across his roles at G2A, FARFETCH, MetaMap, DiDi, and PayPal, Iremar has seen the same mistake repeated.
Organisations copy fraud frameworks without adapting them to their product, user base, or transaction model.
The result is predictable:
Controls that look robust on paper
False positives that quietly erode trust
Growth slowed by friction rather than fraud itself
Fraud risk is contextual. Marketplaces, subscription models, and financial platforms face fundamentally different threat profiles. Treating them the same guarantees inefficiency.
Identity as the New Control Layer
A central theme of the conversation is identity.
Not identity as a compliance checkbox, but identity as a strategic control that shapes user behaviour, conversion, and long-term trust.
Iremar explains how modern fraud prevention increasingly depends on:
Intelligent onboarding rather than post-transaction clean-up
Risk-based identity checks instead of blanket friction
Combining behavioural signals with verification technologies
When identity is designed well, it reduces fraud while preserving customer experience. When designed poorly, it becomes its own source of risk.
Fraud as a Product Function
One of the most important insights from the episode is the reframing of fraud teams.
The strongest fraud outcomes emerge when fraud operates as part of the product ecosystem. Not as an after-the-fact gatekeeper.
That means:
Early involvement in product and feature design
Shared ownership of risk with engineering and legal
Clear alignment between fraud metrics and business goals
This shift transforms fraud from a blocker into an enabler. It allows organisations to scale with confidence rather than react to incidents after damage is done.
Scaling Trust in High-Volume Marketplaces
At marketplace scale, traditional rule-based approaches quickly break down.
Iremar discusses how high-volume environments demand:
Continuous tuning rather than static thresholds
Acceptance that some risk is the cost of growth
Focus on trends and signals rather than isolated events
Trust is not achieved by eliminating risk entirely. It is achieved by managing it intelligently and transparently.
What This Means for Risk Leaders
This episode reinforces a broader RiskMasters theme.
Risk leadership is moving upstream.
Fraud, identity, and trust are no longer operational afterthoughts. They are strategic design choices that shape customer experience, brand credibility, and long-term performance.
For risk leaders, the challenge is clear:
Understand the business deeply
Design controls that fit how value is created
Accept trade-offs consciously rather than by accident
Because in fast-moving digital environments, friction is also a risk.