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As is usual this time of year, many organizations are sharing information and finalized data for 2023.
Recently, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the United States Treasury updated its Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) data through the end of 2023. Let’s walk through everything we’ve learned from the data.
Payment types rank for 2023:
- Checks – 528,864 SARs filed.
- Credit/Debit Cards – 299,935 SARs filed.
- ACH – 199,939 SARs filed.
- Wires – 97,865 SARs filed.
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Writing an Effective Suspicious Activity Report
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Just to show you how much things have changed in the last five years, here are the SAR filing rankings for 2018:
- Checks – 166,512 SARs filed.
- Credit/Debit Cards – 163,900 SARs filed.
- ACH – 65,181 SARs filed.
- Wires – 44,306 SARs filed.
Although the order of the list has not changed, the number of filings has increased across the board:
- Checks – 218% SAR filing growth since 2018.
- Credit/Debit Cards – 83% SAR filing growth since 2018.
- ACH – 207% SAR filing growth since 2018.
- Wires – 121% SAR filing growth since 2018.
Check SARs have increased for the past two years, while ACH and wires have consistent growth patterns. Meanwhile, credit and debit card filings declined through 2020 and remained low during 2021 with fewer people active and swiping during COVID-19.
Lately, we’ve been hearing about increases in check and card fraud, and as you can see by the next list, both checks and cards top the other payment types by a margin for growth over the past two years:
- Checks – 112% SAR filing growth since 2021.
- Credit/Debit Cards – 114% SAR filing growth since 2021.
- ACH – 13% SAR filing growth since 2021.
- Wires – 66% SAR filing growth since 2021.
This data helps to understand the amount of phone calls and disputes filed on debit cards and checks received by financial institutions. Fraudsters are actively attempting to steal tangible items such as checks and cards, while placing skimmers on many card reading devices or stealing card data through other illegal means. For checks, U.S. mail carriers and boxes have been robbed to commit fraud. Wire transfers remain the highest target of business email compromise.
Meanwhile, ACH has a consistent growth pattern of fraud that is consistent with overall ACH volume growth, as it is not as easy to conduct an ACH transaction on an earned and secure online system versus swiping a card or sending a check. Furthermore, Nacha is actively attempting to implement new ODFI and RDFI rules to reduce the incidence of credit-push fraud.
What we’re seeing with heightened check and card fraud, while wires remain a top target of email fraud, is common across the country. It’s a matter of making your account holders aware of such risks of each system and advising them to review their online statements daily for anything peculiar.
Source: FinCEN
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Rock Out Your Payments Updates!
Our rock star trainers are hitting the road for our 2024 Payment Systems Update tour! Join us at a venue near you or virtually to find out what your organization needs to know to rock out upcoming payments changes and challenges impacting your organization in 2024. Together we’ll cover updates from FinCEN, the Federal Reserve, CFPB and more. Register to join us virtually or in person today!
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