The survey also shed light on what financial institutions are doing to respond to and protect their customer accounts, the bottom line and brand reputation as well as some renewed dialogue on EMV.
Investing in fraud prevention
With large-scale data breaches comes the need to manage and protect against the fallout. Participants in the survey appear to be responding to the need. Ninety percent of respondents indicate they are pouring resources into fraud prevention resources. Investments in technology, team education, and partnering with third-party fraud prevention subject matter experts top the list of investment.
EMV attitudes
In addition, respondents indicated that they are re-thinking their EMV plans to help prevent future fraud. As the last holdout of EMV, the US has remained susceptible to payments fraud by continuing to only promote mag stripe and signature for credit cards. Regions like Canada and Great Britain experienced significant drops in card fraud once they employed EMV and chip and pin plastics.
Some positive news
The unfortunate part of data breaches and related payments fraud is the widespread negative impact it has on the industry. If there is a positive aspect, it makes the industry stand up and take notice of current protocols and evaluate new ways to combat.
And it sounds like many financial institutions are doing the right things when it comes to responding to such acts. More than forty percent of respondents indicated that their customers responded favorably to their actions in the wake of the breach.
That certainly bodes well for customer satisfaction and retention efforts.
Note: The survey of fifty financial industry professionals was conducted by ACI Worldwide at BAI Payments Connect in Las Vegas on March 10-11, 2013 and includes responses from executive/management decision makers, fraud/risk management, and back office operations at financial institutions.