Year-End Transaction Volume

Depending on which news report you read, sales on “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” were considerably higher than last year. What does that mean for the bank fraud investigator? More transactions to wade through! Right about now, bank fraud departments around the United States are working overtime combing through billions of transactions. Unfortunately, when volume increases, so too does the volume of fraud attempts.

When transaction volumes spike, any weaknesses in a bank’s fraud detection landscape are often magnified. That’s what the fraudster wants. The more stress the bank’s fraud department is under, the more likely it will be that fraud transactions will slip through.

You can’t do that much to control the volume, but you can capture the lessons learned when you and your team are pushed to the breaking point. Consider the following questions to ask yourself immediately following the holiday season madness:

1. How did we do? Be honest. Give yourself a grade – “A”, “B”, “C” etc.
   
2. Jot down 5 reasons why the grade is appropriate.
   
3. Next, list 5 ways that your team can improve.

As you develop the reasons to support the grade, here is some food for thought:

• How much fraud did we prevent? Were we able to reduce our losses as a percentage of our exposure?
   
• Did we have enough staff in place to handle the volume? Were we able to handle the increase in volume efficiently with minimal increases in overtime? Should we consider a different staffing model for next year such as outsourcing, or the use of temporary staffing for non-core functions?
   
• How did the staffs’ morale hold up? Did we struggle to keep everyone engaged and motivated? Did the staff’s performance expose any gaps in their training?
   
• Did our fraud detection technology perform as intended? Did our “false-positive” rates spiral out of control, or were they consistent with previous high volume periods?
   
• Did the department uncover any new or innovative fraud schemes? Was our response effective? Have we made plans to incorporate those lessons learned in what we do next year?
   
• How did other departments that we depend upon for support perform? If, for example, Bank Operations struggled to handle the volume of requests from your department, is there something that you can do to refine and improve the process?
   
• Were certain bank products particularly prone to fraud this year? Is there anything we can recommend to the owner of the product to help reduce fraud in the future?

Now reassess the grade you gave yourself at the beginning of the exercise. Do you still deserve the same grade? Have you taken the time to document the “lessons learned”? What do you plan to do with the information? Just as volume spikes at the end of the year, it typically falls at the beginning of the year. Use the time to develop action plans from the answers to the questions above. The next holiday/shopping season will be here much sooner than you would like.

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