Prove Unveils Inaugural Trust 25 Honoring Leaders from Citi, Bank of America, and Uber

Prove has launched "The Trust 25," a recognition program honoring 25 executives who are reshaping digital trust as artificial intelligence complicates identity verification. For fintech leaders, this underscores a transition where managing fraud and authentication has moved from a technical necessity to a board-level priority across banking, payments, and e-commerce sectors.

What was announced

The inaugural Trust 25 program identifies a select group of leaders who are redefining how businesses establish and maintain trust in an environment increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence. These honorees were chosen from a pool of hundreds of nominations by an independent panel of industry experts. The evaluation process focused on each leader's individual impact, their innovative approach to security, and their broader contributions to the digital economy. The final list is organized into five distinct categories: Identity, Payments, Customer Experience, Agentic Commerce, and Fraud & Compliance.

The program highlights executives from a diverse range of global organizations, demonstrating that digital identity challenges have expanded far beyond the traditional financial services sector. Represented companies include global banks such as Citi, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, and TD, alongside payment networks and fintech giants like Visa, Stripe, and PayPal. The list also features leaders from e-commerce marketplaces and technology firms including Amazon, eBay, and Uber, as well as gaming and betting platforms such as FanDuel Group and Fanatics Betting and Gaming. Other notable organizations involved include Synchrony Financial, AvidXchange, and Care.com.

A primary driver for this initiative is the dual-edged nature of modern AI. While generative AI has enabled the creation of synthetic identities, deepfake documents, and voice-cloned social engineering attacks at scale, it has also given rise to "agentic commerce." This emerging category involves autonomous AI agents capable of signing up for services, making purchases, and moving money on behalf of human users, creating entirely new requirements for digital authentication.

"These leaders are defining what trust looks like in a world where AI is changing how people interact and transact online," said Rodger Desai, Co-Founder and CEO of Prove. "As it becomes harder to know who or what is on the other side of a digital interaction, identity becomes even more foundational. The Trust 25 recognizes the people building the systems, standards, and strategies that will make trusted digital relationships possible in this next era."

Rodger Desai, Co-Founder and CEO of Prove.

The companies involved

Prove is a specialist in the digital identity and authentication market, providing tools that allow businesses to verify users and prevent fraud during digital interactions. The company is led by Rodger Desai, who serves as Co-Founder and CEO and is also associated with Freedom House. Prove positions itself as a central player in the effort to secure the digital economy, particularly as transactions move away from simple human-to-human or human-to-business models toward more automated interactions. The company operates the website prove.com.

The breadth of companies represented in The Trust 25 reflects the current state of the market, where identity is no longer a siloed concern. By bringing together executives from traditional banking institutions like Bank of America and Citi with modern digital platforms like Uber and FanDuel, the program illustrates how the "trust equation" has become universal. These organizations represent the infrastructure of the modern economy, covering everything from global payment rails and credit providers to specialized e-commerce marketplaces and high-stakes gaming environments. The inclusion of these diverse sectors suggests that the strategies developed by these 25 leaders will likely set the standard for cross-industry identity protocols.

What this means

The fintech sector is entering a volatile period where the definition of a "customer" is fundamentally changing. The rise of agentic commerce—where AI agents act as proxies for humans—threatens to make traditional KYC and multi-factor authentication obsolete. If an autonomous agent can bypass biometric checks or mimic human behavior, the current security perimeter of most financial institutions will be compromised. This announcement signals that the industry is moving toward a more holistic view of identity that integrates fraud prevention directly into the customer experience. The pressure is now on legacy providers to adapt to a world where "identity" must be verified continuously and across multiple platforms simultaneously, rather than just at the point of onboarding.