Earlier this year, Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) released 2024 Key Findings From the Annual FRFS Financial Institution Risk Officer Survey (PDF), which asked over 360 financial institutions about their experiences navigating the evolving payment system risk landscape.
Key takeaways from the survey include:
- Among all payment types, financial institutions experienced the most fraud and losses related to debit cards and checks
- Debit card-related incidents caused the largest year-over-year increases in financial institution fraud losses, followed closely by check
- Counterfeit checks and payee forgery were among the primary drivers of fraud events for financial institutions in 2024
- Financial institutions perceived physical forgery/counterfeit, compromised credentials and physical alteration as the top increasing fraud events
Explore applications of risk officer survey findings with a new webinar
Recently, FRFS hosted a webinar (Off-site) to dive deeper into the results of this 2024 survey of risk officers. In addition to reviewing key takeaways, the webinar highlights actions financial institutions can take to help mitigate fraud and risk.
For example, institutions can introduce friction at a payment’s origination (e.g., limit certain marketplaces, require a user to confirm their identity or use educational popups to prompt users to think twice before completing a large payment). Other strategies that financial institutions can use to help reduce fraud risk include promoting financial education and collaborating with law enforcement.
Watch the full on-demand webinar here (Off-site), no registration required.
Discover FRFS fraud risk management tools
The webinar also discusses how the results of the survey reveal common gaps in the fraud risk management landscape and offers solutions that are readily available to FRFS customers. Is your financial institution taking advantage of these tools to help prevent and mitigate fraud?
Check Services
Receive early notice of potential duplicate checks using FedDetect® Duplicate Notification for Check Services in order to quickly detect potentially fraudulent transactions. This service is available at no additional cost to Check Services customers.
Ensure your staff has more time to review checks for potential alterations and suspicious endorsements using the FedPayments® Reporter Service for Check Services.
FedACH® Services
Manage exception cases efficiently, save staff time and improve customer satisfaction by accessing the Exception Resolution Service via the FedLine Web® or FedLine Advantage® Solution.
You can also get timely transaction anomaly information via FedDetect Anomaly for FedACH Services and tailor your institution’s monitoring criteria to reflect your risk management strategies using the FedACH Risk RDFI Alert Service.
Fedwire® Funds Service
Access your financial institution’s historical compliance data in both the previous Fedwire Application Interface Manual (FAIM) format and the current ISO® 20022 message format using the FedTransaction Analyzer® tool.
FedNow® Service
Support instant payment transactions and related messages via the Exception Resolution Service.
Set thresholds for different customer types using account activity thresholds so that payments exceeding a defined cumulative value or velocity threshold for customers you specify will be rejected. Participants can also specify suspicious accounts your institution can’t send to or receive from by using participant-defined negative lists. Review the FedNow Service’s guide to managing fraud risk (Off-site) for more.
Review other resources for combating fraud
Interested in learning more? Check out the Check Fraud Mitigation Toolkit (Off-site) and Scams Mitigation Toolkit (Off-site), which are intended to support education and increase awareness about check fraud and scams, enable the payments industry to better identify and fight them, and foster industry collaboration on fraud and scams mitigation.
