Employee training does not get mentioned enough in terms of how these frontline staff at a financial institution can save a client/member from losing their money to a fraudster. Frontline employees should at minimum have an innate curiosity and ability through training to recognize a red flag signal that may not meet the smell test and therefore get them to press pause and do more investigation before processing the transaction request.
Training should also include knowing a frontline employee has the wherewithal to seek out a supervisor who has more fraud prevention training and experience to review a transaction request and pose a few questions to the customer to determine if everything is on the up and up.
As consumer campaigns to create awareness of someone becoming the target of a financial fraud often say stop and think before acting on an investment or other type scheme that may be fraudulent, the same applies to financial institutions who know what red flags to look out for and, as in this example below, have the ability to pause and question what is happening with a transaction request put before them.
While trusting your instinct is a valid statement, it is as much to do with training and empowering employees on what to suspect before just processing a request without asking pertinent questions. After all, it is not only protecting the customer from losing money but the financial institution in terms of them not following proper AML risk prevention and mitigation procedures.
More financial institution employees need to act on their instincts and training knowledge and understand when a transaction request may need to be escalated for further review before just processing it.
The cartoon picture in this post is very appropriate as not all customers may be happy with the bank’s response. Too bad as the customer may be a bad actor facilitating this fraud. Other customers should be grateful if the employee is looking out for them in the instance that they may be under the influence of a scammer trying to remove them from their money.
This post by Mr. King received very favorable comments, as it should.
Dwayne king
AML Geek & Certified Expert Witness | Protecting Canada’s Financial System
Fraud prevention does not always begin with a system alert.
Sometimes it begins with an employee saying:
“Something about this does not feel right.” 🚩
A recent situation reminded me just how important that instinct can be.
A young credit union member wanted to send several thousand dollars overseas to purchase a rare collectible card.
The transaction could easily have been processed as requested. Instead, the employee processing the wire , paused took a few moments to consider the facts and decided to escalate it for a second review.
That review identified several red flags suggesting the member may have been dealing with a fraudster.
The concerns were explained to the member, who ultimately decided not to proceed with the payment. 🛑
This was not a multimillion-dollar investigation or a sophisticated enforcement operation.
It was one employee trusting their instincts, another employee taking the time to look deeper, and a member being protected from a loss that would have had a significant impact on them.
Policies, technology and controls all matter.
But sometimes the strongest control is a person who is willing to slow things down, ask one more question and speak up.
Trust your instincts. They may not always prove that something is wrong, but they are usually telling you that something deserves a closer look. 👀
#FraudPrevention #FinancialCrime #Compliance #CreditUnions #MemberProtection #myAMLlife
