Overview

How Well Do Financial Institutions Protect their Consumers and Allow Consumers to Protect Themselves?

U.S. financial institutions (FIs) have made great strides in customer-facing identity fraud detection and overall behind-the-scenes fraud mitigation, yet still need to capitalize on opportunities to partner with customers for fraud prevention. Javelin' s third annual Banking Identity Safety Scorecard is updated to reflect the latest criminal methods and opportunities, and shows specific ways that individual financial institutions (FIs) can increase customer safety and loyalty by partnering with account holders to fight a common enemy: the identity fraud criminal. The twenty-four institutions included in the study collectively represent over 60% of the U.S. market in 2006 by dollar value of deposits, according to the FDIC. This report uses a combination of mystery-shopper and Web site research to score leading U.S. providers against exacting Prevention, Detection, and Resolution™ criteria derived from Javelin' s nationally representative 2006 Identity Fraud Survey Report.

Primary Questions

• Which customer safety features most differentiate the top financial institutions?
• What are today' s best investments for reducing the cost of identity fraud and building consumer confidence?
• Where is banking safety strongest or weakest, and what is the future outlook?

Findings and Analysis

U.S. financial institutions have made the strongest improvement in customer self-detection capabilities, potentially stopping fraud sooner by adding email alerts that make it easier and faster for customers to discover suspicious activities. Meanwhile, FIs are holding steady in offering prevention features, such as anti-phishing email policies, elimination of paper media or eradicating the use of the full nine-digit Social Security number (SSN).

• Overview
• Key Findings
• 2006 Top Banking Safety Rankings
• Banking Industry Recommendations
• Overall Results
• Results for Leaders in Prevention
• Results for Leaders in Detection
• Deputizing Customers Continues to Be Best Way to Improve Detection
• Alerts: Consumers Want More Personalized Control
• Results for Leaders in Resolution
• Resolution: Granting Victims Greater Access to Stolen Funds Can Give Willing Providers
• an Edge in Resolution
• Conclusions and Full Rankings
• Methodology
• Appendix:
  • Comparing 2005 and 2006 Scorecards Methodologies
  • Related Research