California Credit Union Comes Face-to-Face With Wire Fraud

One California credit union found a way to successfully walk the fine line between member experience and security challenges, specifically growing wire fraud threats, through a mobile-video banking platform.

One of the fastest growing global cybercrimes, wire transfer fraud, is a multi-billion-dollar problem affecting all types of personal or business transactions. In July, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, warned business email compromise, a sophisticated scam targeting both businesses and individuals performing wire transfer payments, continues to grow and evolve.

John Buzzard, CO-OP Financial Services Industry Fraud Specialist, observed, “Credit unions experience periodic issues with consumers taken in by wire-fraud scammers. Romance, relative-in-jail and IRS scams are big criminal business these days, and many of them rely on wire transfers to steal from their victims.”

The $105 million Redondo Beach, Calif.-based South Bay Credit Union now wields an unexpected weapon against wire fraud. After adding Salt Lake City-based POPio Mobile Video Cloud to its digital suite last year, SBCU discovered visual identification over mobile to be a game changer for reinforcing wire transfer security.

SBCU CEO Jennifer Oliver, pointed out, it was an unintended benefit of their digital transformation goal set in 2014. “We’ve been making strides to really marry anything you do at a branch, you could do with us virtually.” The original plan was to use interactive video technology to limit branch visits or lengthy phone calls. SBCU’s interactive video enables face-to-face collaboration with reps via mobile devices to instantly verify IDs, transfer funds, change PINs, apply for loans, sign documents, etc.—creating a protected branch-like experience from anywhere.

“Mobile and video technology working together is the future of financial services,” said POPio Mobile Video Cloud founder and CEO Gene Pranger, who created the concept of video banking with uGenius video around 2005 when he personalized the interactive video ATM experience. “With POPio, we’re taking hold of that future, allowing consumers to touch base with financial experts entirely at their convenience—to pop ‘in’ and ‘out’—whenever and wherever they choose.”

Rebecca Herold, president of SIMBUS and CEO of The Privacy Professor, advised credit unions on wire fraud. “Cybercrooks target credit unions because that is where the money is at. Credit unions need to establish strong security controls to help reduce the possibility of becoming a cybercrook victim.”

Read more about wire fraud and mobile video banking in the November 21 issue of CU Times.