The payment-verification company is pitching its technology at the high-volume contractor payrolls agencies run every cycle, warning that one-off name matching no longer stops the scams hitting accounts payable.
Payment fraud prevention company Eftsure has extended its verification platform to the recruitment industry, applying the multi-layered checks it uses for B2B payments to the contractor and sole trader files agencies process every pay cycle.
The Sydney-based company, which bills itself as the global market leader in payment fraud prevention, paired the move with a pointed message to finance teams: the verification methods many firms still rely on, including one-off name matching, are not enough to stop the fraud now aimed at payment workflows.
“The recruitment industry is uniquely exposed,” said Ramesh Menon, Chief Product Officer at Eftsure. “These firms run some of the most complex payment environments in Australia and New Zealand.”
A high-turnover payment environment
The scale of the exposure is considerable. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show 1.1 million people were working as independent contractors as of August 2025, or 7.6 per cent of everyone employed. The administrative and support services segment, which takes in recruitment and labour hire, carries the highest contractor density of any industry in the country, at roughly one in five workers.
A single agency can pay thousands of contractors, temps and locums in one cycle, Menon said, with new payees added every week and bank details often supplied by candidates themselves over email. That mix of volume, turnover, individual payees and time pressure, he said, is precisely the condition fraudsters look for.
Where the gaps open up
Across its customer base, Eftsure said it has watched criminals target several recurring weak points: bank details supplied by candidates rather than verified business entities; contractors switching accounts mid-engagement or after a spell out of the system; payroll batch processing that buries individual changes inside bulk files; and time pressure that cuts manual checks short.
The Australian Federal Police has tracked a similar exposure profile in construction. Recruitment firms operate in comparable territory, with the added wrinkle that account details originate with candidates rather than established suppliers.
“We have seen payments that customers believed were legitimate turn out to be fraud,” said Michelle Cram, Vice President of Customer Operations at Eftsure. Bank statements, phone confirmations and one-off name-and-account checks can all be fabricated or manipulated, she said, and a single layer of verification cannot carry the load for accounts payable teams processing large contractor volumes, particularly as AI tools help fraudsters find control gaps in minutes rather than weeks.
Paying twice
The financial stakes are laid out in the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report, which recorded $166.8 million in payment redirection losses across Australia in 2025, second only to investment scams. The mechanics hit accounts payable directly. A criminal poses as a contractor, sends through updated bank details, and the agency pays the fraudster, leaving the worker still owed their pay and the business out of pocket twice.
How the platform works
Eftsure said its expanded engine confirms, for every payee, that the person is who they claim to be and that the nominated account belongs to them, then flags any later changes to banking details or risk signals before the next payment run. The continuous monitoring that already alerts customers to vendor account changes now extends to individual payees.
The expansion is backed by the company’s payment guarantee, subject to terms and conditions, and is also being offered to insurers, superannuation funds, credit unions, mortgage brokers, NDIS providers and digital marketplace operators.
Sources
Eftsure media release, “Eftsure extends payment fraud prevention to the recruitment industry” (Seven Communications, contact Gareth Beddoes).
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Working Arrangements / Characteristics of Employment, August 2025: 1.1 million independent contractors (7.6% of all employed); administrative and support services highest contractor density.
ACCC / National Anti-Scam Centre, Targeting Scams report 2025: $166.8 million in payment redirection losses.
Australian Federal Police commentary on payment-redirection exposure in the construction sector (as cited in the Eftsure release).
