Customer fraud protection products for banks and credit unions

Inevitably, the vast majority of financial institutions will experience payments fraud. Among this year’s AFP Payments Fraud Survey of nearly 700 treasury and finance professionals, a record high of 78 percent of organizations fell victim to payments fraud last year. Banks and credit unions are long overdue in giving account holders what they want and need – to eliminate time-consuming, antiquated fraud prevention processes and replace them with actionable online banking systems that empower account holders to both detect and respond to suspicious activity before the funds ever leave their account.

In 2017, 6.64 percent of consumers became victims of identity fraud, an increase of more than one million victims compared to the previous year, according to research from Javelin. This statistic highlights the growing number of threats that today’s account holders constantly face when it comes to security. Battling payments fraud, identity theft, account takeovers and email scams is no easy task and there is no silver bullet solution that will totally eliminate these threats. Instead, financial institutions must implement layered security measures that leverage different technologies to truly protect account holders and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council agrees.

As Corporate Account Takeover swiftly rises (read Part 1 here), traditional protection strategies are not enough. Verifying all transactions between a financial institution and its business client through manual processes would be a daunting and practically impossible task, not to mention cost-prohibitive for most institutions. Today, multi-dimensional, preemptive strategies are critical to mitigating this growing threat.

However, one major question posed is where does the responsibility for online banking security lie?

Last year, 16.7 million consumers were victims of identity fraud - up eight percent from the previous year and a new record high, according to Javelin Strategy & Research’s 2018 Identity Fraud Study. This translates to more than $16.8 billion stolen, with much of that from financial institutions.

Moreover, Account Takeover fraud grew significantly, tripling over the past year and reaching a four-year high. Javelin reported that total losses from Account Takeover reached $5.1 billion – a 120 percent increase from 2016. Deemed one of the most challenging fraud types for consumers, victims pay, on average, $290 and spend 16 hours to resolve it.

But consumers are not the only victims. Corporate Account Takeover is also on the rise.