The Christmas adverts seem to have arrived even earlier this year and shoppers have been making the most of Black Friday deals - as we move more and more towards life online, the threat of financial crime and the need for proper cybersecurity are at their highest. With a lot of interaction happening digitally, rather than just face-to-face, it’s vital to understand fraud to protect yourself and your customers, but it's not just about keeping safe online.

Getting to know fraud – from cybercrime to internal fraud

It’s important that everyone is aware of the different types of fraud – from application fraud to cybercrime, from card and payment crime to internal fraud.

Lots of types of fraud can take place regardless of knowledge. Anyone could have their emails hacked into, or their bank card stolen. Card and online fraud especially relies on exploiting weak points in technology and processes, requiring companies to constantly up their game to protect their customers. Many of us never know the extent of the battles going on in the background when we take out a product, but the fact is that consumers are being continually protected from lots of different types of fraud without even knowing it.

Scams are a type of fraud, but they are unique in one sense: they can’t take place without people. No technology in the world is advanced enough to stop a person from being manipulated into sending money to a scammer from their own account.  

Our strongest weapon to combat scams is education and awareness – not just to protect ourselves, but to protect our members, our friends, families and neighbours.

For customer-facing colleagues, this is about knowing our customers and having confident conversations with them to help prevent and report fraudulent transactions before they take place.

For all colleagues, it’s about sharing your knowledge, spotting an opportunity for a chat with a neighbour or loved one about certain types of scams, helping to increase awareness and being a blocker against scam attempts.

From romance to impersonation, here’s an overview of some of the most typical types of scams

Take Five website

Introduce yourself and your customers to the Take Five website, a government site dedicated to stopping fraud. This website is designed to help both individuals and businesses take steps to prevent falling victim to scams. It offers up to date information about recent scams and best practice tips for keeping your finances safe.  

To protect your customers, you need to make sure you’ve got processes in place internally – to help keep you on track. The first step to ensuring the security of your customers is to develop a security culture in your organisation, which you can be done via three simple steps:

1. Create an employee security policy

An employee security policy is a good place to start. This should include best practice guidance such as flagging suspicious emails, secure channels to use with customers, how and when to ask for personal information, how to store this information, and how to use any security technology that your firm utilises.

By introducing security policies for your team, you minimise the risk that any fraudulent activities could begin from within your own systems.

2. Encourage training

It is important that your team stay up to date with the latest information about fraud and cybersecurity in the finance sector. Do this by encouraging staff to do regular training, even providing dedicated time for these activities. This can include webinars from reputable sources or training on the software used to manage your security. You’ll also find useful courses on MYLO, some of which are mandatory. Not only does this keep your team well-informed, but it also reinforces the idea that security is important and needs to be at the forefront of people’s thinking.

3. Follow up

The final part of building a security culture is to follow up on the pieces you have already put in place. To do this, check in with your team to see what they have been learning about security lately and that they’ve completed any mandatory learning. Additionally, take the time to ensure that the actions laid out in your security policy are being adhered to consistently. It is important that your team are all on board and taking security seriously.

The more people we can help to stay one step ahead of scammers, the better

By knowing more about the different types of fraud and scams you can then pass this information on to others who might need support – these are conversations that customers will appreciate as anyone can be a victim of fraud. So, let’s do our bit to make people aware.