Synthetic identity fraud is costing companies heavily, with $14.7 billion lost to this type of crime in 2018 alone.
This is a particularly subtle and nefarious kind of attack, in which bad actors create fake identities using real details stolen from different consumers. The result is a persona that often holds up against financial institutions’ (FIs’) traditional verification methods. Criminals can then use these identities to open bank and credit union accounts, secure loans and ultimately vanish without ever repaying.
The July-August FI Fraud Decisioning Playbook examines how FIs are upgrading their strategies to better detect and thwart this fast-growing form of crime.
Around The FI Fraud Decisioning World
Banks’ fraud-fighting measures must go beyond just determining whether the customer details provided by new applicants are legitimate. FIs also have to ensure all those details actually belong to the same, real individuals. This work requires checking for discrepancies between how the customers present themselves and how they actually behave, such as whether users are engaging via devices located in certain countries while professing to be from others.