There is now a whole economy of cybercrime developing specifically targeting the financial services sector and its consumers. Phishing, Credential Stuffing and other web-based attacks have had a huge cost and impact on the industry...to the tune of nearly $3 million per minute! What can be done to protect your members and their information from a cyber attack and minimize the expense if one should happen? A combination of technology and education can be your best defense.

The month of July is here and with it brings the mid-summer shopping frenzy. Credit cards get a work-out as consumers join the melee of sales, deals and offers too good to resist. The traditional Christmas in July sales offer consumers great deals on big ticket items like cars, laptops and electronics, among other in-store and online deals. Those sales are further boosted by vacation and travel spending (gas, hotels, car rentals, airline, and amusement park tickets) and the eventual back-to-school shopping. Adding to this mix for the last 5 years is a new consumer shopping phenomenon - Amazon Prime Days.

Credit unions who utilize core technology that offers open architecture no doubt did their research and entered into a core provider partnership with their credit union's future in mind. In doing so, they set themselves up to offer members current fintech as soon as it becomes available. Using API (Application Program interface) technology, new third-party applications can easily interact with any credit union app to provide additional services, features and added conveniences. While inviting third-party technology to work and interact with your digital banking technology is a simple and expedient solution to boost your member offerings, is it safe? Is it smart to let them have access to your member’s accounts?

Recently Facebook experienced the largest one-day drop in history when it’s stock price plummeted $41.24, which turned out to be a decrease just shy of 20%. Facebook’s stock price has proven to be volatile throughout 2018 between decreasing user engagement, the Cambridge Analytica data breach, and Zuckerberg’s highly televised testimony to Congress. However, the biggest hit came at the end of July when Facebook released its Q2 earnings report, which unsettled investors once they saw a decline in active Facebook users, new obstacles emerging from Europe’s updated privacy laws, and concerns regarding the monetization of ads on Instagram leading to an overarching concern about Facebook’s potential profitability moving forward. Despite the variety of issues that led to Facebook’s demise in the stock market, the source of these problems all stems from one place: Security.

We hate to be "that" person, but we told you so. As predicted, Card Not Present (CNP) credit card fraud continues to rise since the establishment of EMV technology (chip cards) last October. CNP transactions include any payment made where the card is not physically present, online, over the phone or mobile. While card present fraud experienced a 43% decrease, according to Visa, CNP fraud experienced a direct increase. The US Payments Forum 2017 report stated that the increase in security of chip cards forced fraudsters to focus their attention on an easier target: CNP transactions. The report concluded that this trend will continue into 2018 and consumers can expect fraud dollars to exceed $6 billion.

Cybersecurity is in the forefront of all business owners' minds. As we become more interconnected, we open ourselves to more potential breaches. This concern is especially prominent in the financial sector. When you're talking about member's hard earned dollars, there's no room for error. There is an imminent deadline approaching that credit unions need to be aware of as it relates to credit union cybersecurity: An authentication protocol called TLS.

With new technology comes new risk. We see this often in our daily lives. Keyless entry and remote start for cars are convenient, but it didn't take long for thieves to come up with a device that lets them steal cars that use key fobs. Wi-Fi is essential to efficiency in our home and office, but even with complicated passwords, it can cause security nightmares. Mobile banking is a necessary offering to remain competitive, but Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) opens you up to a new kind of credit union fraud. A recent analysis of 400 FIs found that of all fraud cases involving mobile banking apps, 72 percent included remote deposit capture (RDC) and the use of fraudulent checks.