W Let’s Come Together TO ADDRESS FRAUD BY REBECA ROMERO RAINEY, INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY BANKERS OF AMERICA When it comes to fraud, it takes a village. That may be in part because fraudsters continue to get more sophisticated, and fraud’s effect on banking is skyrocketing. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost upwards of $12.5 billion to fraud in 20241 – a 25% increase year over year. Additionally, community banks ranked cybersecurity2 as the highest internal risk to their banks. Fortunately, the core pillars of ICBA – education, innovation and advocacy – all address fraud risks by providing information, tools and resources to circumvent mounting threats. We’re empowering you with knowledge of the latest attacks and ways to protect against them, technology solutions to employ to shield your organizations, and connections to government agencies to ensure just and fair fraud protections, as well as collaborations to stop it in its tracks. Case in point: Consider our partnership with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to combat the threat of check fraud. We are working together to deliver in-branch educational materials with step-by-step instructions to help consumers safeguard their financial assets and respond if they experience this type of fraud. Yet, some of the most effective approaches to fraud prevention emerge through conversations about what has worked within your banks. That firsthand knowledge goes a long way in providing a tried-and-true solution to an immediate problem. It’s also this connection that enables you to alert one another to the latest scams and advise each other on how to prevent losses for your customers and your banks. ICBA Community3 offers a platform to facilitate these conversations in a secure, digital fashion all year round. Outside the individual relationships you have with colleagues, ICBA Community allows you to connect with new bankers, throw out a question to see who’s experienced something similar, share a strategy about what worked in preventing an attack and so much more. This spirit of helping one another makes community banking unique. We come together to offer advice and support for the common good. Very few industries can point to the level of collective positive impact we have. For fraud, that makes all the difference because fraud is everyone’s problem. To hit it head-on, we have to approach it holistically across the industry, taking advantage of all the tools in our toolboxes. It takes this community of community bankers to make a difference. Collectively, we will continue to have an impact, thwarting one fraud attempt at a time. 1 “New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024.” Federal Trade Commission, March 10, 2025. https://bit.ly/FTCfraud24 2 “2024 CSBS Annual Survey of Community Banks.” Conference of State Bank Supervisors, Oct. 2, 2024. https://bit.ly/CSBSsurvey24 3 Learn more at community.ICBA.org. F E ATUR E Rebeca Romero Rainey is one of the nation’s foremost advocates of the community banking industry, with a focus on regulatory reform for our country’s nearly 5,000 community banks. A third-generation community banker, she is the former chairman and CEO of Centinel Bank of Taos, New Mexico. Rebeca Romero Rainey President and CEO Independent Community Bankers of America Rebeca.RomeroRainey@ICBA.org 38 HOOSIERBANKER
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==