PHOENIX — The big, emerging trend in fraud mitigation and prevention now is taking steps to stay on top of cross-channel fraud, said speakers on a panel at the BAI Payments Connect conference.

Tim Brady, a Capital One fraud expert, explained that increasingly when crooks take over an account, they are closely examining the many banking relationships the victim has and they are seeking to suck money out of all of them. Are there lines of credit that can be tapped? A savings account that is linked to checking? “They become the customer and they are seeking to take over all those relationships,” Brady told the panel at the Phoenix gathering

Also from BAI Payments Connect:

Kevin Thomsen, a Citigroup fraud expert, also observed that today's criminals are so sophisticated that they have many more user name and password combinations than they know what to do with, so they are using screen scraping tools to gather insights into how much various victims have in their accounts. Then they focus their energies on those with the richest balances.

As for defenses at the institutional level, panelist Nanette Hilley, an executive with SunTrust, said at the Monday afternoon session: “It's about a layered approach. No one layer will be 100% effective” – but throw enough layers of defense against criminals who are “increasingly sophisticated” and the chances the financial institution will stay safe mount.

Brady also stressed that winning the fraud wars involves “engaging with the customer.” That means enlisting customers as allies in the fight and helping educate them about dangerous behaviors.

A point of difference emerged on this panel when Capital One's Brady indicated his institution sometimes held customers – especially commercial accounts – responsible for their losses. Thomsen said that at Citi, “we always make the customer whole.”

Later, in an informal interview during a conference break, Brady indicated that the customers who were asked to cover their own losses tended to have “redundant instances of fraud.” Brady added that in other cases Capital One might cover the customer's losses but seek to terminate the relationship.

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