Penny Crosman writes in American Banker about the rise in identity fraud in the past year; citing a Javelin Strategy and Research report it showed losses stemming from identity fraud rose 15% in 2019 to $16.9 billion and while there was no data in this report for 2020 there have been reports of substantial increases in financial fraud since the onset of the crisis; FIS reported that credit and debit card fraud rose 35% in April from a year earlier; one lender, Axcess Financial, is using technology to combat the problem; they brought in a veteran from Synchrony Financial, Richard Cooney, to lead fraud strategy; he began beefing up authentication for every new account opening and online transaction; Cooney said, “We started with that idea, to make authentication as tight, strong and optimized as we can make it so that the person who is trying to manipulate an identity, create a synthetic identity or steal an identity is going to have a hard time getting through that process. And the good customer is going to come through very easily.” American Banker.
