IMF chief Georgieva warns cyber fraud could leave people saving in shoeboxes

Georgieva said cyber fraud had now become costly enough that people might choose to leave the formal financial system entirely ^[4]. The Bulgarian economist said she grew up on the other side of the iron curtain ^[13]. "We didn't trust the system. What did we do? I would have my dollars in a shoebox under my bed," she said ^[14]. Her projection was conditional. She worried, she said, that "unless we figure out how to get ahead of this curve" the world "may end up with lots of people with shoeboxes under their beds" ^[5]. She said the threat was particularly acute for people on the fringes of the financial system: "Imagine what would happen if trust disappears or is eroded to a point that people no more have the courage to be included" ^[6].

Bailey said fraud is now frequently committed through social media platforms and apps, not only traditional financial channels ^[8]. He set the platforms against newspapers, which are responsible for the veracity of everything they publish ^[9]. "We've moved into quite an extreme position of, well, these platforms are open to everybody and there's no real liability to the provision of the platform to what's on it," he said ^[10]. His ask was direct: "We must get the social media companies involved because a lot of this fraud is transmitted through those channels" ^[11].

On the AI-agent threat, Bailey cited press reports: of self-replicating AI agents hijacking personal devices, and of the French supermarket hack that heated fridges up to 50C ^[3]. The IMF's own assessment, issued the day before the panel, was more measured. It named the possibility of a big cyber-attack as one of three factors ^[15] lifting the global financial stability threat level to "elevated", alongside higher borrowing costs and the risk of an AI share price crash ^[7].

Bailey also pointed to a tool the sector holds directly. "I'm going to use a sporting metaphor: this technology is arming the offence but it can also arm the defence, and it must do," he said ^[12]. The panel launched the Bangkok blueprint, a set of international principles for avoiding cyber fraud in financial institutions ^[16]. In our view that scope matters, because the transmission route Bailey described runs through platforms outside those institutions ^[11]. The Guardian's report does not say whether the principles reach platforms.