Preparing for Fraud in 2020 and Beyond

Posted by Deborah Peace on Oct 3, 2019 9:00:00 AM

2019 payments fraud

With 2020 just a few months away, now is the time for financial institutions to make sure that their business customers’ needs are covered before entering the new year. In fact, AFP’s survey revealed that fraudsters show no signs of stopping when it comes to attacking businesses, with a whopping 80 percent of companies reporting Business Email Compromise (BEC).

According to JPMorgan Chase, small businesses make up 99 percent of America’s 28.7 million firms, powering local communities across the country to thrive. More than ever, financial institutions should be taking measures to protect business customers, like equipping them with actionable treasury management services, to mitigate potential risks. With the large amount of fraud affecting corporate customers, financial institutions are able to provide significant value to this group while also establishing a competitive advantage.

FIs Are Missing Out on Providing Value

Before financial institutions can update existing treasury management services, they need to identify the issues with the services already in place.

Most financial institutions have a solution that involves employees monitoring transactions and simply guessing which are fraudulent, spurring a call to the business customer to verify suspicious activity. This requires manual, labor-intensive processes to review and report fraudulent transactions, slowing down the process of identifying suspicious activity. This process appears outdated, inconvenient and often intrusive to customers, especially when the 48 hours after fraud occurs are crucial for businesses because regulation requires it to be reported within the two-day timeframe.

Customer experience is a major factor when corporate customers are seeking to fulfill their banking needs. Today, customers value ease of use, convenience and self-service-on-demand services – and anything that is too complicated or time-consuming will be overlooked in search of a more streamlined, convenient solution.

Actionable is the Answer

Financial institutions offering actionable capabilities, like initiating a wire transfer, an ACH batch, internal transfers and loan payment, are not doing enough to support their business customers. Allowing customers to detect any suspect ACH debits and checks through ACH positive pay and check positive pay is beneficial, but these methods typically lack easy-to-use automation and result in low adoption rates.

Instead, financial institutions must put security in the hands of the account holder by investing in actionable fraud prevention coupled with treasury management systems available through single sign-on. Giving business customers the control in detecting and responding to suspicious activity before funds ever leave their account enhances both security measures and customer experience, making the financial institution a fan favorite.

Prepping Business Customers for the New Year

Because businesses’ success hinders on the ability to receive timely payment and often initiate regular movement of funds between one another, the technology behind monitoring fraud must keep up. A reliable treasury management system that offers actionable fraud prevention across various all payment types can ultimately make a financial institution more profitable and competitive.

 Don’t let your existing treasury management system jeopardize your financial institution’s competitive advantage; let it provide value to business customers while improving the customer experience. With 2020 around the corner, protecting business customers will be top of mind in the new year.