FNF's ionFraud Adds Account Verification as Wire Fraud Claims Costs Climb

September 10, 2026

Fidelity National Financial (FNF)'s Agency Operations business is adding account verification to its ionFraud platform, giving title and settlement agents a way to check wiring instructions against data before money leaves an escrow account.

The new ionFraud Account Verification module draws on FNF's internal wire history along with a national bank account and known-mule-account database. Agents can run a check at either point where fraud typically slips through: at the start of a transaction, to screen for seller or borrower impersonation, or immediately before a wire is sent.

“A wire only takes seconds to send, while claims take years to resolve.  Checking the account after the money has already moved is checking too late,” said Ravi Bapodra, chief operating officer of FNF Agency Operations. “ionFraud is designed so an agent can review account data before sending a wire.  It’s another tool that can complement their unique processes to combat wire fraud.”

The rollout responds to a widening exposure at the closing table. A 2025 industry analysis of title insurance claims and claims-related losses found that fraud and forgery account for 40.3% of total claim costs on refinance transactions, more than double the 19.6% share on purchase transactions. The average fraud claim now runs nearly seven times higher than other claim types. The same analysis attributes roughly 40% of refinance losses to issues that a public record search would not catch, which is the gap that account-level verification is meant to close.

“Our focus is making this easy for agents to actually use,” said Tara Asquith, FNF senior vice president of product. “The Account Verification step fits into the workflow agents already follow with the ionFraud Absentee Owner Search, so they can act on it without adding steps to the closing process.”

ionFraud Account Verification went live for FNF's agency network on Sept. 9. ionFraud was originally built to combat seller impersonation fraud; the new module extends the same workflow to cover wire-instruction review.


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