MBA Compliance and Risk 2026: Appropriately startled

Service providers and consultants stood hopeful at booths while prospects, the mortgage lenders, wandered the hall. With the MBA Compliance and Risk Conference held deep underground at the D.C. Grand Hyatt, there was zero cell reception. So with calls and texts an impossibility, eye contact and mingling were a well-engineered conference feature. Equally well engineered was the presentation of the fraud risks faced by lenders in 2026. By the end of the day, there was a growing awareness that because of AI, the industry was more vulnerable than ever. The what-ifs Frank Abagnale, famous as the “Catch Me If You Can” rogue-turned-crime-fighter, delivered the opening keynote address. His message: You can trust nothing and must verify everything. Lock down your credit file, stay off social media, use biometric ID verification and independently confirm every detail. There can be no assumption of validity for any information used in an underwriting decision, not the employment, the assets nor the actual existence of a putative borrower. A new and devastating fraud, synthetic loans and identities, is growing. These “synth scams” mean that perhaps nothing in the loan file is real, from the pr...