TSB announces the winners of its 2025 Innovation Labs Fraud Programme – with focus on fraud prevention

TSB is today announcing that three fintech startups have won TSB’s 2025 Innovation Labs programme – with all three companies demonstrating potential in the fight against fraud.

The winners - Serene, AVIEL Intelligence, and Tunic Pay – will all now work with TSB as suppliers, as they further develop and pilot their proposition, as part of TSB’s fraud prevention programme.

Fraud remains a big issue for households across the UK – as UK Finance figures¹ recently showed that criminals stole over £620 million in the first half of the year, a three per cent increase on the same period in 2024.

About the Winners

Serene²: Serene delivers predictive behavioural intelligence, helping TSB proactively identify and support vulnerable customers before fraud occurs, by analysing behavioural patterns to enable early interventions.

• Savannah Price Serene CEO & Founder: “We’re really excited to be moving into pilot with TSB. The Labs programme gave us an invaluable chance to co-develop something meaningful alongside the teams who deal with these challenges every day. Now, we’re looking forward to validating this new use case - and showing how upstream scam prevention can not only reduce fraud losses, but better protect vulnerable customers across the market"

AVIEL Intelligence³: AVIEL Intelligence uses AI-augmented intelligence gathering to detect emerging fraud patterns and identify mule accounts.

• Joe Tallett, AVIEL Intelligence CEO said:  'We're over the moon to have been selected as winners of the TSB Innovation Labs, and want to thank TSB for running a program packed with such amazing insights into their fraud operations.
  “This partnership is a powerful validation of AVIEL's precision anti-scam intelligence, and we're thrilled to be working with TSB's fraud team to turn that intelligence into real protection for their customers.”

Tunic Pay: Tunic Pay enables TSB to pause and assess suspicious transactions without slowing down legitimate ones — striking the right balance between safety and speed.

• Nicky Goulimis, Tunic Pay Co-founder "Participating in the Innovation Labs Fraud Programme has been a rare chance to partner with a bank beyond a purely commercial relationship. By going deeper on TSB's systems, infrastructure, and team processes, we have now shipped new  features to help reduce AHT, surface richer cyber-fraud-fusion insights, and to accelerate delivery. We also made some fantastic friends & community with the other 13 companies tackling fraud."

The 2025 programme, delivered in partnership with FinTech Scotland, focused on finding innovative solutions to tackle fraud and protect customers. This year, finalists worked closely with TSB teams to understand the real-world challenges faced by colleagues and customers, tailoring their pitches to address the most pressing issues in fraud prevention.

Adam Betteridge, TSB Labs Lead at TSB, said:

“We are incredibly proud of the progress made by Serene, AVIEL Intelligence, and Tunic Pay during the TSB Labs programme.

“Their innovative solutions use data and technology in new creative ways to help provide an even better experience for TSB customers & colleagues. We’re looking forward to what comes next.”

Nicola Anderson, CEO at FinTech Scotland, said:

“We’re delighted to see, once more, amazing collaborations developing between TSB and fintech innovators. They each bring creative, data-driven solutions to tackle the rising issue of financial fraud. Initiatives like the TSB Innovation Labs are very much aligned to FinTech Scotland’s values of purposeful partnerships between financial institutions and fintech entrepreneurs to deliver real impact for consumers and strengthen trust in digital finance.”

Notes to editors

¹ UK Finance fraud data - Over £600 million stolen by fraudsters in first half of 2025

² Empowering Institutions with Proactive Vulnerability Management - Serene

³ AVIEL Intelligence

⁴ Tunic Pay - Real-time payment intelligence

About the TSB Labs Programme

Now in its fifth year, the TSB Labs programme provides up to 15 new fintechs each year with the opportunity to develop and grow their propositions with insight and guidance from TSB experts based at the bank’s Technology Hub in Edinburgh.

Previous winners have delivered tangible benefits for TSB customers, including Lightning Reach, which connects struggling households to grants. And ApTap, which helps customers compare and switch utility bills.

What’s Next?

The next phase will see Serene, AVIEL Intelligence, and Tunic Pay work closely with TSB to develop and pilot their solutions, with the aim of delivering improved security and customer experiences across the bank.

For more information about the TSB Labs programme, visit TSB Labs or FinTech Scotland.