Popping the fraud balloon

Fraud is much like a balloon – if you squeeze one end (through new tools, policies, strategies), the pressure builds and “balloons” out elsewhere. For banks it means fraud moves to another channel, payment type, pattern, or maybe even hopefully to another institution, such as online fraud, account takeover or identity theft.

Criminals test for the weakest link in the fraud prevention chain. If they can’t penetrate one link, they find another. Online banking is a big target and banks have been stepping up their efforts to put safeguards in place to mitigate fraud.

However, there’s no one killer app that can be used to block criminals and whilst banks are trying to stop fraud, criminals are already conjuring up their next scam. So how do we prevent these criminals from getting in? By integrating fraud and AML solutions to share information across the entire enterprise, financial institutions can enhance institutional awareness and prevent fraud pressure points. Gartner agrees as it’s seeing a growing trend by banks to combine monitoring systems for fraud detection with those of AML.

It’s not about experimenting with integration, it’s about acting now. Financial institutions need to be proactive and have a holistic 360 degree customer view that can be used seamlessly across channels to have any chance of popping the balloon.