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Implementing the newest technologies is not enough! Financial institutions need to look beyond technology solutions and effectively train staff to identify and prevent fraud.

According to industry experts, trained personnel are one of the most effective ways to prevent fraud! Technology can be useful, but financial institutions shouldn’t rely solely on systems. Human eyes can often see unusual or suspicious activity that computers can’t.

Banks and Credit Unions alike are all too aware that they can’t rely solely on technology to prevent fraud and the ever-evolving types of fraud threats. As technology and the world change, scammers’ fraud tactics transform as well. Since financial institutions can’t predict the next fraud trend, they often can’t adopt preventative technology until after a fraud trend has been identified and a technological solution has been created.

Customers don’t have time to wait for technology to catch up! They want a financial institution that has trained employees who can spot fraud before they become victims. By teaching staff members how to identify fraud, you can protect your financial institution as well as your customers/members from fraud threats.

According to BankInfoSecurity's Faces of Fraud Survey, 58% of financial institutions are expecting increased fraud-fighting resources in 2012. An extremely important aspect of allocating those resources is by investing in staff training. After all, your employees are the first line of defense against fraud.

TRC Interactive’s First Line of Defense program offers interactive and engaging fraud training to help financial institutions identify and prevent fraud attempts. To learn more, contact us at o info@trcinteractive.com, visit the First Line of Defense Page or contact your TRC Interactive Sales Consultant at (800) 222-9909.

According to a European report, the U.S.A. is one of the top three countries for ATM fraud. To combat this growing problem, financial institutions need to stay on top of fraud trends, educate employees on fraud, and implement new programs and strategies to discourage scammers. Knowledge is the best way to protect your customers!

The European ATM Security Team recently reported that financial losses due to ATM fraud have gone down, but the number of attacks has increased by 63%. This is a huge increase! The report indicates that cash trapping has grown significantly, but card skimming remains the number one type of ATM fraud. Other ATM fraud techniques include card trapping and ATM reversal fraud.

While many European countries have reduced the impact of card skimming losses by implementing new technology that discourages scammers, the U.S.A. is contributing to the majority of the card skimming incidents due to a lack of the new technology. In order to fight ATM fraud, financial institutions need to implement new strategies for prevention as well as remain educated on scam trends.

TRC Interactive offers a variety of fraud prevention and detection courses. To learn more about available courses, please visit our Training Solutions page or contact us at either info@trcinteractive.com or (800) 222-9909. Also, be sure to check our blog regularly to stay current on the hottest topics in the banking industry.

Compliance Is The Biggest Concern
Financial institutions offer opinions on key challenges and issues

Compliance related issues are the biggest concern for a majority of U.S. financial institutions according to the biannual MST 2012 Survey of banks and credit unions. The survey focused on some of the key challenges faced by financial institutions including Compliance, Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL), Regulatory direction and Mergers & Acquisition.

Read the full article by Mainstreet Technologies HERE or you can download the article HERE.

Many Compliance Officers are at their breaking point, revealed a recent study of 500 compliance professionals conducted by Thomson Reuters. Between all the new rules and regulations and the pressure from regulators, Compliance Departments are struggling to handle of all of their responsibilities due to a lack of resources and personnel.

While compliance professionals are already overwhelmed, regulators are expected to enact even more policies in 2012, many of which will regulate global activity. The study conducted by Thomson Reuters indicated that on average, it takes the equivalent of a full day’s worth of work for professionals to learn about new policies. This is time and money that can be better spent. For instance, compliance officers should be spending their time working on their core responsibilities such as handling internal audits and risk management.

While it is important that Compliance Departments be educated on new policies and rules, it is also important that compliance professionals be able to complete their work without being overwhelmed. That’s where TRC Interactive comes in. Twice a month, we provide information about recent trends, concerns, and news on our blog. We also routinely send out information via our newsletters, and we are always updating our courses to educate learners on the newest compliance regulations. By using the resources available from TRC Interactive, you can spend less time researching and learning about regulation changes and more time focusing on your core responsibilities. We will take the work out of learning.

Even though compliance officers are often overworked and overlooked, but we are here to help! By sharing information and trends and providing valuable coursework, TRC Interactive strives to make your job easier.

To learn more about courses available from TRC Interactive, please contact us at info@trcinteractive.com or (800) 222-9909. Also, for more informative and timely pieces like this, be sure to check our blog regularly at http://trcinteractive.com/Blogx to stay updated on the hottest topics in the banking industry.

The protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is an increasingly huge concern for financial institutions. While you already have measures in place to protect consumer information, banks and credit unions should focus on ways to improve techniques and solutions to further reduce the risk of a security breach. New measures emphasize the importance of increased security of customer information.

Bank examiners are reportedly asking tougher questions about how institutions are protecting customer information. This new emphasis is the result of recent security breaches, such as the August 2011 Citibank incident. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) recently demonstrated this renewed interest in protecting customer information with updated Authentication Guidance as well as the FDIC’s guidance for the oversight of third-party payments processers.

The updated requirements are emulated in many of the mandates outlined in the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). It is predicted that regulators may use PCI-DSS as a complementary standard in evaluating an institution’s overall security even though it is not something they can enforce.

This new emphasis on consumer protection requires an institution to take a look at its current security measures. How can you improve your practices to better protect your customers? What requirements outlined in PCI-DSS are lacking in your current techniques and solutions? Not only should an institution be asking these questions so it can improve the current protections , but institutions need to prepare for the tough questions they may be asked by bank examiners.

TRC Interactive looks forward to providing you with updates on FFIEC and other hot topics. Make sure you are receiving the latest news by contacting us at info@trcinteractive.com or contact your TRC Interactive Sales Consultant at (800) 222-9909 for more information.