Fotis Konstantinidis joined CO-OP Financial Services in January 2018 as Senior Vice President overseeing fraud products.

It’s very clear that the card industry is making strides to reduce card-present counterfeit fraud by migrating to chip technology, but a much-anticipated increase in card-not-present fraud is slowly ramping up as more and more issuers and merchants adopt chip and tokenized payments.

According to Marketwatch, the 2017 holiday shopping season promises to be the second best since the end of the great recession – growing by 5.7 over the 2016 season.

As biometric technology improves and more use cases evolve, we discover more about the benefits, risks and the growth potential of the technology each day. In fact, here are three things we’ve recently learned about the technology.

It’s not easy staying safe. If it’s not the 1 billion cyberattacks you’re suffering every year, it’s your members oversharing their biometric data with fraudulent accounts on social media.

Payments, UX, fraud detection and – most significantly – consumers are all getting smarter. This week, we’re fascinated by Visa and PYMNTS’ new findings that a large majority of connected consumers want an effortless shopping experience.

This week we bring you the good news that fraud is down. Sadly, though, it isn’t out. We also feature some interesting reports on ransomware, persistent fraud, EMV enhancements and cybersecurity in the healthcare sector. Keep up the good fight!

Are your retail and dining experiences suddenly more mobile? If industry news is any indicator, they probably are

For credit unions today, machine learning is proving invaluable in the fight against card fraud. Moreover, the technology’s potential to enhance your service proposition extends well beyond the realm of member security.

Nearly every cyber threat expert agrees we haven’t seen the end of the WannaCry ransomware attack. Having thwarted the intrusion detection systems of global companies like FedEx, the biggest cyber-attack the world has ever seen may have credit unions wondering, “Are we next?”

Security is never easy, but this week we’re thinking about how we all might make it a little easier.

Skimming horror stories are nothing new. Tales of consumers unwittingly inserting their cards at ATMs with fraudulent technology frequently pervade headlines. Fake card inserts, keypads and other devices have all been fitted on ATMs, giving them the look of the real deal while quietly collecting consumers’ data.

To hack an online account, you need a password. Wrong. Today’s tech-savvy hackers have found a way around the pesky task of hunting down login credentials – using cookies.

According to VISA, as reported to PYMNTS.com, merchants that accept EMV chip cards have seen counterfeit card fraud drop by 52 percent year over year.

Fighting fraud is one of the biggest challenges credit unions face right now. CO-OP has developed a four-part roadmap for 2017 to help clients mitigate fraud and reduce false positives.

Fraud scoring tools provide financial institutions with another robust layer of protection against fraudulent transactions.

As fraudsters increasingly up the ante with their tactics, it is more important than ever for financial institutions to take proactive prevention measures.

Vending machines, ATMs and gas pumps yet to be chip-enabled present prime opportunities to fraudsters looking for a quick score. 

Taking consumers’ financial lives to the next level may go hand-in-hand with embracing the Internet of Things.  

Synthetic identity fraud combines real, typically stolen consumer information with false details. While this type of fraud is quickly growing, consumers can take action to help protect themselves.

While avoiding chip cards can seemingly keep transaction speeds lightening-like, the cost of such behavior can be fraud.

Use cases for unstructured data include consumer service, market research and risk management – three good reasons alone for not discounting the underutilized data type.

Robocalls, social media schemes and criminals posing as fraud investigators are just a few tricks likely to pick up steam this year.