Five fraud risks emerging in 2022

Auditing your current fraud prevention efforts and using best practices and good tools are good steps to take.

Credit unions have faced no shortage of challenges over the last two years. Between the temporary closure of physical locations, finding ways to connect with members digitally and pivoting services to meet their ever-changing needs, it has been a time of change and growth.

While it seems that we are turning a new page since the onset of COVID-19, there are still challenges ahead. Particularly, the digital transformation driven by the pandemic has brought with it unprecedented levels of fraud. This new digital-first environment has given fraudsters new ways to commit crimes, putting businesses and consumers at risk. It’s important to anticipate new types of fraud and leverage the right tools and technology to combat emerging trends.

Here are five potential fraud threats from Experian’s 2022 Future of Fraud Forecast.

Buy Now, Pay Never

The buy now, pay later space has grown massively recently. In fact, the number of BNPL users in the US has grown by more than 300% a year since 2018, reaching 45 million active users in 2021 who are spending more than $20.8 billion. Without the right identity verification and fraud mitigation tools in place, fraudsters will take advantage of some BNPL companies and consumers in 2022. Experian predicts BNPL lenders will see an uptick in two types of fraud: identity theft and synthetic identity fraud, when a fraudster uses a combination of real and fake information to create an entirely new identity. This could result in significant losses for BNPL lenders.

 

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