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Fraud remains a pervasive and growing problem for community banks—with tangible losses. According to a survey from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, every dollar lost to fraud costs U.S. financial services firms $4.23, 16 percent higher than in 2020. In addition, Insider Intelligence reports total losses from fraudulent card transactions reached $12.16 billion in 2022. These numbers are resulting in significant impacts to profitability that makes fraud prevention a priority for all of us.
Thankfully, we can build up protections. At my bank, we’ve incurred limited fraud losses over the years, but we also recognize that relying on that good karma won’t protect us from ever-evolving, sophisticated attacks. So, we spend a lot of time training our team to spot red flags and our staff know our customers by name. In fact, just recently, one of our frontline employees identified an attempt to cash stolen checks and was able to keep the fraudsters occupied long enough for law enforcement to arrive—a win for the bank and the community.
But minimizing fraud loss encompasses so much more than just training. It comes down to the balance of prevention and resolution. With customer education, you can help protect your clients from falling victim to fraud in the first place, but if they do have a fraud experience, you want to be able to support them in getting it resolved quickly. How you handle a fraudulent claim will shape the customer relationship and impressions of the bank. As a relationship banker, you need to ensure that you have the right resources at your disposal to serve as their advocate.
That’s why ICBA Bancard focuses on equipping community banks with solutions to help them both circumvent and address fraud as it arises. From the customer-facing Cyber and Data Security Toolkit to the bank-supportive Fraud Loss Protection Plan, and CardinalCommerce eCommerce fraud monitoring tool, solutions exist for helping banks manage both prevention and resolution. And watch for more to come: ICBA Bancard and TCM Bank are working on state-of-the-art technology to be rolled out later in the year that will help both bank and client experiences.
Rest assured, with ICBA Bancard, you have an advocate and ally that will provide you with needed support; you always have people at the ready and in your corner who care about community banks, your customers’ experiences, and your needs. I hope you see that dedication in the stories selected for this quarter’s issue, if any questions arise, reach out to the ICBA Bancard team. We’re here for you.