Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>The rise of advanced deepfake impersonations, combined with the inherent weaknesses of legacy OTP/PIN-based verification systems, are increasingly posing risks to modern fintech ecosystems. This paper introduces a new Decentralized AI-Powered Self-Healing Zero-Trust framework to protect digital identity and access management. The system includes a deepfake-resistant biometric engine that employs AI-based liveness and artifact detection to prevent photo and video replay attacks. The system replaces traditional verification with only fingerprint biometric authorization, thus removing the reliance on interceptable OTPs. The system is based on a continuous Zero-Trust architecture and manages user data in a decentralized ledger to avoid single points of failure. Experimental results show that the system can detect threats with an accuracy of 99.2%, which significantly improves fraud resistance in modern financial applications.</p>