Serial Entrepreneur’s Third-Time Venture, Charm Security, Introduced at FinovateFall

By Roy Urrico

Roy Zur, co-founder and CEO of Charm Security, sat down with Finopotamus at FinovateFall 2025, held September 8-10, 2025 in New York City, to discuss how Charm’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered scam defense platform tackles what he describes as “the fastest-growing vector of fraud: the exploitation of people, not systems.”

Roy Zur, co-founder and CEO of Charm Security, at FinovateFall 2025.

Key Fraud Statistics:

• Fraud losses in the U.S. surpassed $12.5 billion in 2024 (according to the FTC), with scams driving the sharpest rise.

• A 2025 survey by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) found 79% of companies experienced payment fraud attempts in 2024, with BEC (business email compromise) attacks leading the way.

• Scammers cheated consumers out of more than $1 trillion in 2024, according to a report from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and Feedzai, with banks and fintechs shouldering both the financial and reputational risk.

Charm Security, Zur explained, aims to prevent human-centric fraud, social engineering, and scams by using psychological insights, real-time interventions, and scam intelligence to “break the scam spell” and protect organizations and their customers. “We help financial institutions protect themselves and their customers or members from attackers or scammers or fraudsters that try to manipulate or trick people into sending money to the wrong people,” Zur told Finopotamus.

The New York-based startup launched in March 2025 to combat the growing threat of AI-fueled fraud. Charm’s HVE (Human Vulnerabilities & Exploits) model enables real-time interventions that can stop scams before funds are lost. The platform analyzes human vulnerability, creates customer risk profiles, and offers real-time disruption and proactive prevention tools across various channels, Zur noted.

At FinovateFall, Zur also previewed a new partnership with Give an Hour, a national nonprofit delivering no-cost mental health services. The “first-of-its-kind collaboration” provides the integration of AI-powered scam prevention with victim-informed mental health expertise. Zur explained the initiative, launched during Suicide Prevention Month, underscored that scams are not only financial crimes but also human crises that can contribute to anxiety, depression, and even suicide risk.

Pioneering Human-Layer Security

Zur brings 20-plus years of cybersecurity and legal experience, including service in Israeli Military Intelligence for almost a decade, work with the U.S. Supreme Court on financial crime, and shepherding the successful exits of two cybersecurity startups (2016, 2021). “For the past eight years, as an entrepreneur, I had two companies, prior to Charm. Both of them were in cybersecurity, and both of them were acquired,” said Zur.

Charm, Zur, is pioneering “human-layer security” with AI agents that can detect manipulation and intervene in real time. “The best way to protect people from attackers is through the financial institutions and through the financial channels. Because eventually the attackers, most of them at least, are aiming for your money, and your money is with the bank, with the credit union, with the FinTech, with the crypto wallets,” he explained.

Charm Security’s platform offers:

• AI-powered scam defense. It uses AI, psychological insights, and scam intelligence to detect and disrupt deception and manipulation in real time.

• Human-centric fraud prevention. With a focus on preventing scams that exploit human vulnerabilities.

• Customer and employee protection: It protects both customers from scams and provides tools to evaluate employee readiness for fraud detection and intervention.

• Real-time interventions: Charm's “Scam Defense Agents” can break the spell of a scam as it unfolds, preventing losses.

How Charm Security Works

“We are developing AI scam defense agents that are trained to be a very sophisticated security and fraud analyst and investigator, but also with deep understanding of what we call human vulnerabilities and exploits,” said Zur.

Zur continued, “We train our AI models on millions of scam cases that happen, analyzing it both from the victim perspective, but also from the attacker perspective. We operate AI agents that talk to scammers. The scammers do not know they are talking to AI agents, but they pretend to be victims. they learn (scammers) ways and they learn their behavior, and they find new exploit techniques.”

The Charm Security CEO described how when they deploy their solution at a bank or the credit union, “our AI agents are able to not just flag that a potential transaction or something that's happening may be risky to the individual, but are able to intervene in real time directly with the customer or with the user.”

For financial institutions, Zur explained, “We will be able to tell you immediately that the transaction you are going to make, or the action that you are going to take, actually may cause you harm because of ‘A, B, C.’ We identify that this is a potentially a scam and help you stop that in real time.”

In addition, the same AI agents are also available to the account holder, to the user themselves. It is not just when the bank reaches out to you and tells you, ‘Hey, be aware of that,’ but also you (the consumer) can activate these agents are available to you all the time within your banking app or financial solutions,” said Zur.

Working with FIs

Charm has multiple ways to help financial institutions, Zur pointed out. “We collect the signals that are coming from both existing detection solutions that the (financial institution) has and also run it in our own model.”

Charm can also work with other providers. An example, Zur cited as a Charm collaborator is New York City-based BioCatch, which prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior. “If they flag suspicious activity in the financial app, then our agent can start reaching out to you and intervene before you even make a transaction.”

Charm has both an autonomous solution integrated with the existing communication channels of the bank or credit union, or can alert the financial institution reps to alert the customer or member. Zur explained Charm can work directly with the customer, but they also have tools that help the fraud operations team and customer facing teams at the financial institution” review suspicious activity.

Charm agents, he added, can also help the human agents or fraud team at a financial institution while they are in communication with customers or members to analyze the conversation and understand the risks in real time. “Think about a very sophisticated investigator that is with you on the line, but also has deep understanding of behavioral science and psychology, and knows how to communicate with people and break the scam spell. in many cases, the challenge is about making sure that people understand or wake up from the deception they are under,” Zur explained.

A Copilot Option

For banks that do not want to implement a fully autonomous solution that will communicate with their customers and members, there is a “copilot” solution, Zur said. “Let us say there is a conversation between a team member to a customer. Our system, just in listening mode, analyzes the situation in real time and provides the human agent with comments, tips, live guidance, concerns about the person.” Many organizations, Zur added, only start with the co-pilot to help their teams and only later deploy a solution the full autonomous solution for the institutions.

Zur emphasized the Charm system can not only help resolve situations around scams, but also the system can identify emotional distress. “Because scams are also something that affect many people’s emotional state, and also even suicide attempts. More than 60% of scam victims been experienced some level of significant emotional distress and some up to a level that is even risking their lives.

Zur also noted the emotional component fits well with what credit unions do for their members. “For credit unions, because it is all about people, there is the ability of actually helping people and there are a lot of victims that need help. And (the emotional support element) is a no-cost help that we are not selling.”