Banks Cooperating to Combat Fraud in the EU

Fraud in EU countries is evolving. Criminals are increasingly shifting their targets from banks themselves to bank customers through scams like CEO fraud, account takeovers and phishing. Various reports discuss the reasons behind the increase in these customer-centered attacks, but less research has gone into understanding what banks can do to stop payment fraud. On that front, ABN AMRO’s CIO and CISO asked a dedicated research team to develop a deeper understanding of the problems European banks face when combating fraud with findings that could be shared across the banking community.

Fraud insights from 25 banks

ABN AMRO’s research team has talked to 43 enthusiastic fraud experts from 25 banks in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) region. Insights are being shared with all participants through a series of knowledge papers. The first knowledge paper contains an overview of the types of fraud that banks are dealing with, the challenges that banks face with regulation, the payment fraud ecosystem, the different anti-fraud roles within banks and a blueprint of the fraud management capability that is applicable to most banks, including types of supporting actions (e.g. sensors and detection techniques).

Sharing information

One of the subjects that regularly came up during the interviews was the need for sharing different types of information between financial institutions, which mostly happens through partnerships on a national level. Countries that have national sharing initiatives based on interviews with other banks include: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the UK. More details on these initiatives are available in the knowledge papers.

Staying ahead of fraud losses

Are you a fraud expert, fraud manager or CISO who wants to stay ahead of fraud by sharing insights and working together with other banks? Contact Harm Kuiper by email to set up a meeting or video call and to receive the knowledge paper.