The pandemic provided many financial institutions with a digital reality check as they scrambled to accommodate the surge in digital channel usage. As the future of money is changing, this has also presented financial institutions with an opportunity to rethink current technology investments as they adjust their business models and take a step closer to a digital-first strategy.  With an expected increase in digital channel investment, preventing digital fraud while improving customer experience will be the key to attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.

Mobile apps, online banking, P2P payments, and more are delivering the simple and fast online experiences today’s consumers desire from their financial institutions. However, many fraud detection solutions continue to undermine the customer experience, adding unnecessary friction in the quest to reduce account takeover, new account fraud, and social engineering attacks.

Fraudsters thrive on confusion and fear.  We saw this unfold during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As financial institutions scrambled to adjust to supporting a remote workforce, customers were also adjusting to moving more business online.  In fact, financial institutions saw a 250% increase in digital channel usage on average, noted Julie Conroy, Research Director at Aite Group, in a recent webinar.  “This wasn’t just existing customers, but we also saw a lot of net new users come into the fore.”

The role of digital services in our lives has never proven more pivotal than it has in recent months. From banking and shopping to how we work and how our children learn, the most routine of activities we do every day has been completely upended. 

There is one word that lives in the vocabulary of every fraud and security operations team: collaboration. All you have to do is read about the takedown of some of the most notorious cybercrime gangs to know success relies on the ability to work well with one another. While this might be an extreme example, the nature of collaboration is no different and no less important for teams on the front lines of fighting fraud every day.

Social engineering has been one of the largest threats to an organization’s cybersecurity for some time. Scammers are becoming more clever and sophisticated in their attack methods, and the global outbreak of coronavirus has shown that these criminals are not afraid to prey on high levels of public fear and the extensive spread of misinformation to develop new campaigns for their financial gain.