Web Banking Fraud Actually in Decline

American Banker recently published an article on the decline in internet banking fraud losses and the emerging threat of first-party fraud. FICO fraud experts, including fraud blogger Brian Kinch, are quoted. Here's an excerpt:

Most of the recent attention in fraud technology has been on third-party fraud. The most common forms of which are identity theft and account takeover. However, about 6 or 7 years ago in the U.K., a team at FICO identified a new very sophisticated method of fraud emerging – that of first-party fraud. I recently had the opportunity to talk with the team at FICO managing the response to this threat.

First-party fraud is the use of what appears to be a real identity that satisfies application requirements, but where there is no intent to pay for the credit facility or loan that is given. It can often involves a synthetic ID that has been generated over years or months to look legitimate.