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Credit unions have spent years adding layers of technology designed to determine whether the person on the other end of a transaction really is who they claim to be. Institutions used layers of security questions to answer that question.
But what happens when the fraudster knows all the answers?
A recent lawsuit involving FiCare Federal Credit Union highlights the problem. The credit union alleges that criminals impersonated members and contacted a call center to have fraud restrictions removed from stolen debit and credit cards.
According to the allegations, the callers were able to provide enough information to get through knowledge-based authentication and convince human representatives that they were legitimate members.
The case is still being litigated, so the allegations should not be treated as established fact.
But the situation raises an important question for every financial institution: What happens when the information you’re using to verify someone has already been compromised?
It would be tempting to look at a case like this and argue that financial institutions need more human intervention.
But humans were already involved. That’s what makes the story interesting.
A human representative working with the same compromised information as the automated system isn’t necessarily another layer of protection. The representative may simply be making a judgment based on information the criminal already possesses.
Real verification requires another source of evidence.
That might mean confirmation through an authenticated mobile application. It could mean contacting the member through a previously established channel rather than one supplied during the suspicious interaction.
In higher-risk circumstances, it could involve additional outreach designed to establish information that isn’t available to the person attempting the fraud.
The important principle is that the next layer of verification should introduce new information. That principle extends well beyond card fraud.
Financial institutions routinely encounter situations in which the information in their systems stops providing enough certainty. A borrower becomes unreachable. An address may no longer be accurate. A financed vehicle or piece of equipment may have moved. A business may no longer be operating where the lender expects it to be.
In those situations, repeating another database search or another automated communication may not resolve the uncertainty.
Sometimes the institution needs information from outside the system. That’s where targeted field intelligence can become valuable.
A field representative can attempt contact, verify an address, observe whether a business appears operational, confirm the presence of collateral, or simply gather facts that aren’t available through the lender’s existing digital channels.
That doesn’t mean every suspicious transaction or unanswered phone call requires someone in the field.
It means technology should help financial institutions recognize when their existing information is no longer sufficient, and when another source of evidence is warranted.
The future of fraud prevention isn’t choosing between technology and people. It’s giving people better information and knowing when to seek evidence the technology doesn’t have.
To find out more about how NCCI Services is helping credit unions get this additional layer of protection, reach out to us today. Contact Presley Santos at psantos@ncciservices.com or email CreditUnion@ncciservices.com.
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