The rules designed to protect consumers do not always work in real life the way regulators expect them to. Few people have had the chance to see this problem from as many sides as Kat Cloud, Head of Government Relations at Sumsub.
The Drofa Comms team is glad to welcome Kat as the guest of Episode 8 of the Women Leading the Way podcast!
Kat began her career at the UK Financial Conduct Authority, where she helped write financial regulation. She later moved to fintech companies including Plaid and Yodlee, where the same rules had to be translated into actual business processes.
Now, she works with governments and regulators. She helps them understand how decisions around compliance, digital identity and fraud prevention affect the companies expected to follow them.
Together with host Maria Tunikova, Kat looks at what happens when financial regulation meets technology in real life.
One of the central topics of the episode is AI fraud and digital identity. Sumsub has reported a 180% year-on-year increase in sophisticated identity fraud. This reflects how much harder fraudulent identities can now be for ordinary users to recognise.
In one of our articles, we also explored the state of crypto and AI fraud in 2026. We concluded that while new technology gives businesses new verification and fraud-prevention tools, at the same time it gives fraudsters new ways to create convincing identities, documents and deepfakes.
To address this problem, Kat argues that simply adding more checks is not enough. Companies also need to think about friction. Fraud prevention may protect users, but if verification gets too difficult, legitimate customers can end up paying the price.
The episode also turns to Kat’s career and the changing role of women in fintech. She has seen more women enter regulatory and financial discussions both as senior executives and subject-matter experts with deep knowledge of the issues.
Episode 8 with Kat Cloud of Sumsub is now live on all major podcast platforms!
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube Music.
