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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
THE SIGNAL: Fraud Frontlines: The Fed's Perspective on Fraud Today with Mike Timoney | Episode 451
Fraud losses are climbing, checks are supposedly fading, and yet check fraud is hitting all-time highs. We sat down with Mike Timoney, a payments veteran now leading secure payments work at the Federal Reserve, to unpack that paradox and chart a path to stronger defenses across banks, fintechs, and businesses of every size. The conversation moves from frontline realities to system-wide fixes: why paper is still a prime target, how modern scams bypass technology to persuade people, and what practical tools can help teams react faster than criminals can pivot.
Mike shares a global-to-local career arc (from international banking to ACH, wires, and cards) before taking on fraud across channels and ultimately joining the Fed. That perspective shapes a clear mission: keep the U.S. payment system trusted and reliable by educating the industry, building relationships, and mapping threats without prescribing vendors.
We dive deep into two new resources: a check fraud mitigation toolkit with visual examples, pattern tells, and tips like positive pay; and a scams mitigation toolkit that decodes phishing, smishing, and business email compromise through case studies and actionable defenses. Both are designed as short, usable modules that help community banks train staff and help larger teams keep pace with evolving tactics.
We also tackle the hard part: collaboration and transparency in a fragmented U.S. landscape. With thousands of institutions and varied state privacy rules, information sharing is tough - but not impossible. Mike outlines privacy-enhancing approaches that share patterns, not identities, so institutions can broadcast what criminals are doing without exposing who was hit. AI features throughout the episode as a double-edged sword: it supercharges detection and accelerates response, while giving fraudsters new ways to scale social engineering. The key is narrowing the response gap through better models, faster signal exchange, and continual education.
Walk away with three priorities: make fraud everyone’s job through constant micro-education, keep learning as tactics shift, and share signals across your peer network. If this conversation helps you see a new control, training idea, or partnership opportunity, subscribe, share the episode with your team, or contact Mike for more information.
Welcome to the Signal Federal Powered by the Leaders in Payments Podcast, where we are cutting through the noise to reveal what truly matters in payments and fintechs.
SPEAKER_00:So, Mike, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01:Happy to be here. Expect to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Great, thanks. This episode is part of our technical series where we're cutting through the noise to reveal what truly matters in payments and tech. The Federal Trade Commission data shows that consumers reported losing more than$12.5 billion in fraud in 2024, which was a 25% increase over 2023. That's on the consumer side. And half of all businesses globally report to have been affected by fraud. So you know more than I do, Mike. Fraud and scams are a huge challenge across payments in fintech. And that's what we're going to be diving into today. So before we get into the meat of the conversation, can you give us a quick snapshot of your personal background, maybe where you grew up, where you call home today, a few things like that?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And interestingly enough, I was having this conversation with some folks the other night at a dinner event. I was traveling and they were like, oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And so I've got kind of a weird, you know, a travel background. I originally, my parents are immigrants to the United States. So I'm a first generation American. I was born in Philadelphia, but really never lived in Philadelphia. My parents, after I was born, went back to their home country, which was Ireland. So I actually grew up in Ireland until I was about 11 years old. And so that was my, I know I don't have an accent when I came back across. I had a very strong accent. But uh yeah, so I grew up in Ireland. And if you know the history of the troubles in Ireland, my parents ultimately, when we were in the midst of that, decided it was time to leave. And my uncle had actually moved to Canada. So my parents then, instead of immigrating back to the US, they went to Canada this time. And so then my formative teenage years, high school, all that, and for and college, were actually in Canada originally. And so I went to college, surprisingly, for architecture. I had graduated and I was working with an architect in Toronto and you know, realized that I needed more education in that space if I really wanted to do that forever. And I started looking to the US because I had citizenship, because I was born in the United States. And so I decided I didn't want to be in the cold winter area. So I was like moving south somewhere. And uh, North Carolina at the time had a very good architecture program. And my boss at the time knew about it and said, hey, you should look there. So I ended up coming to Charlotte to be an architect. And I got into the program, the architecture program, and uh, but at that time I realized I just didn't have the artistic flair for architecture. I had the linear, you know, science brain, math and science brain. So I would have been a great engineer, but you know, we didn't have the internet back then, so I couldn't just search for all this stuff to figure it out. So I was already accepted at the school, so I just decided I'd get into business. That got me into the that side of it. So I ultimately ditched architecture and became uh got into business.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Can you walk us through your professional journey and how you got to the Federal Reserve?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. So the first time I went to college for architecture, they had a the program I was in was a co-op program. And so, you know, you obviously had to work while you're going to school. So I was in college for business and I was like, they have a co-op program here. I was actually paying for college and working for an architect here in Charlotte as well, because I had the you know the background. But then I went to the co-op office and they they said, Yeah, you know, we've got this gig at uh Bank of America. Would you like to work at Bank of America? They're headquartered in Charlotte, makes sense. So I I did that for a couple of semesters while I was going to school. And when I was graduating, the bank, I was working in the international, what was called the international department back then, and they wanted to bring me on board and put me in a management program. And so I was like, yeah, that sounds great. So I joined to be in this new, they they created it for me, this management program to rotate me through the different components of the international banking world. And so I started learning, you know, different things, correspondent banking, I learned things in trade finance. I actually worked in the finance group for a bit and they moved me around. I learned a lot of things. And then ultimately I got into some asset back financing, you know, that the US government did and things like that. And so I started learning a bunch of that, and I really enjoyed it. And so, you know, like you mentioned that you work for a bank, Greg, and you kind of get opportunities to do different things over time. And so, like you, my background was in payments. So I ultimately ended up in the world of ACH, wire, check, all of that, not from an operational perspective, but more for the commercial clients, helping them develop our products and evolve the online presence and all that sort of thing, the tools to help them do their treasury management. And so I did that for a good, you know, 15 years, probably, like in some form or fashion, moving around in different roles. And then right around, I think somewhere probably around 2008, maybe, if you remember that, that was when some of the very first data breaches were starting to happen, you know, the Target and the Home Depot and things like that. And our organization started seeing some of our customers fall victim to being scammed in the business email compromise and sending and sending money overseas. And so we had a large retail fraud group, but we really didn't have a commercial fraud group. So that got created. And who became my boss went to some folks in the payments world and said, Hey, I'm looking for someone in those payments that would be interested in learning about fraud. And they knew I was looking for another change. It was that time, you know. I'd been doing a job for a few years, and I was like, I really wasn't enjoying it as much. And they said, Do you want do you want to learn something about fraud? And it was like a lifeline. And I said, sure, I'll I'll give it a shot. And since then I've been doing that. So 2008, I got into fraud, I learned a lot. I worked in fraud for wires, ACH, and uh mostly. I worked in it at the good time when Wires and ACH would shut down on Friday afternoon or Friday evening and didn't come up till Sunday night, right? So no fraud happened over the weekend, so you could actually have a have a weekend in the fraud world. But then uh, you know, then they I guess I was doing a good job and they said, Hey, we want you to take on commercial card. And that's a whole different ballgame. That's 247, 365, right? And uh, so I again learned something brand new, the card business, love the card business, and then the fraud that happened in that space. And then one day I I literally got a call from a recruiter, which you know happens over your career, and usually you can delete them. And this one said they were with the Federal Reserve. And I was like, oh, what's that? You know, so I listened to it and uh and I actually called it back, and um it sounded like a good opportunity. So I started the process of interviewing with the Fed. And let me tell you, that was not a fast process. It took six months for me to actually get on boarded. I think we started in September of 2018, and I went came on board in March of 2019. You know, that was that was good anyway, I think. So now I've been with the Fed almost seven years, and uh I really enjoy it. It's a different perspective than being on the banking side for so long. And uh I run a team now that's focused on you mentioned it, payment system improvement uh and secure payments within that, and we're focused on fraud and security. Yeah, that's what got me there. I know, along with his story. But it's uh like all of us, we learn as we go along and we start to find the things we like. You know, the the boss at the time, I think he he was smart saying that it's easier to teach someone about fraud than his payments, because it it takes a long time. You've been in payments, it takes a long time to learn the intricacies of not just domestic payments, but then you get into international payments and that sort of thing. So that has been a great level set or foundation for me, you know, to learn fraud was much easier.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, thanks. It's very interesting, both the the personal story and and the professional journey. Very interesting. So let's go ahead and and dive into the topic for today's conversation. And let's talk about, if you don't mind, talk about payment security at a high level. Let's start at the high level and then sort of what role does the Federal Reserve play in that?
SPEAKER_01:All right, so it's a it's a great question. That was part of the reason I wanted to join the Fed, because you know, the Fed does play a crucial role in ensuring the security of the payment system and definitely is it's a critical role because we need to have people to believe and understand that it is a secure payment network we have in the United States and that they can trust the network. So when if I'm gonna pay you, Greg, that the money's gonna get there and I don't have to worry about it, that sort of thing. And we know that it's gonna get there. It's you know, even aside from fraud, it's gonna be reliant and trustworthy and all that sort of thing. So that's one component of it. On the other side of it, the security of it is super important, right? And so what my team does is really try to ensure that we are trying to address the problems of the industry from when it comes to fraud security. You know, there are people that focus on cyber and the CI CISOs and that within organizations. That's not what we do. We're really focused on that safety and security of the payment system and trying to trying to work through with the industry very collaboratively what are the problems out there, identify those, and then is there something we can work on together to try and solve those? One of the things that we do a lot though, other than collaboration, is around educational components. We develop a lot of materials to try and help people understand fraud. The United States is quite unique in our structure, our financial structure. I was just on a call prior to this, and and we were talking about other countries, and they were talking about some of the things they're doing from fraud. And it's a little bit easier in some other countries because they don't have thousands of financial institutions. They have 10 financial institutions or something, right? And so so when you start to think about you only have to work with 10 players versus 10,000 players, right? So it's a very different infrastructure we have. So it creates this unique environment that we're in. The other thing that my team tries to do, and I think we do well, is build relationships with people in the industry. And we we are often out there speaking at events, trying to, and when I say speaking, we're either participating in the panel or we're trying to educate people around specific topics, and we get very good feedback on that. I think people really appreciate that you know, we're there working with them to try and solve some of this. And then, you know, webinars and materials that people can use, especially, you know, it feels great when people come up to me at a conference or after I've done a speaking engagement and they tell me, hey, I I love that this material you guys are putting out. Can you know, because we look, if it's helping them, that's great, right? That's what I at the end of the day. We want people to make sure that they feel good about it. And then if you think about the way the structure of the banks are in the US, it's almost like a pyramid, right? The top, there's a few banks, and then you get down and you get to community banks and credit unions, there's a lot of them at the bottom. So it's a very pyramid-shaped. And and those banks at the bottom don't just don't have the resources a lot of the times to build their own material. So when we can provide it for them, I think it makes their life a bit easier. That's pretty much what we do. I would say the hot topics, we try to stay engaged with what's going on. So another key component for us is just to stay aware of the fraud landscape. What's going on? What are the hot topics? Who are the players that are doing something about it? You know, as the Fed, we can't recommend the you know tools and solutions for folks, but we want to make sure we understand them, right? Because we can ultimately talk to those folks and see how there might be ways to help the industry in general.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Well, let's talk about some of those educational things you've done. And in 2025, you released two online toolkits, the Scams mitigation toolkit and the check fraud mitigation toolkit, to you know, really help educate the industry about payments fraud, what you were just talking about, and different ways to detect it and mitigate it. So can you speak to both of them, like why you created them and exactly what they are?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So the these toolkits were in direct uh response to the industry. So that I'll start there. The first one is two things are happening. Two of the hottest trends that are happening in fraud are check fraud and scams. And, you know, when you think about it, some people may not realize how big check fraud is in the United States. Because remember, Greg, we're all we're not we're not writing checks anymore. Checks are going away, and checks are old school, right? So, you know, I don't know if you have kids or not, but your kids probably aren't writing checks. My kids are not writing checks. So it's it's something when, you know, in fact, other countries think it's kind of strange that we're having this kind of environment, you know, because they don't do checks, right? So specifically on the check, I'll start with the check one if that's all right. So it's a significant problem that we're still dealing with, despite the growth of digital payments, which we saw a huge upward trend in digital payments when the pandemic came around, right? So so we've seen this big shift in digital payments, and so you would expect that we would the industry is more focused on that because there's huge growth, you got to stay up on it. It's technical technology has to be implemented quickly to be able to address it, all that sort of thing, right? It's very much like when we went to the pandemic, all of a sudden we had to have Zoom and Teams and all these things that we didn't have before. So now these payments are going and they had to do the same thing. Check usage has dropped dramatically. So from the consumer perspective, we're probably writing less checks, but the businesses are still writing checks. So there's still a lot of checks being processed in the country in the billions, like multi-billions. But there's also multi-billion dollars in check fraud. And so that's a to the point where check fraud actually grew to the highest it's ever been, even though the checks were going down. So check fraud up, check usage going down. So that's not a good scenario because in my mind really says that the cost of check fraud is, you know, for each check is going upwards, right? And so that that's a challenge. For check processing, a lot of the smaller banks still do a lot of that thing manually, right? And so if you think about now they've got fraud, they've got to be even more careful about the items that they're trying to process. And so it can be devastating for them from a check fraud loss perspective. So we were hearing that can you do something about check fraud education? I mentioned my kids, right? If one of my kids happened when they graduated college, if they had gotten a job at a bank as a branch, you know, as a teller or something, they would have had to teach them about checks because they don't know what a check is, right? So literally, when I talk to banks today and they're hiring people for the tellers, they're having to teach them about checks because they don't, you know, they don't use them. So think about that. It's a little bit of a different dynamic. And so what we're trying to do is create some materials that can help them in that. It's not just to help them train. I think the benefit is that they can train their folks with it, but it's also built in a way that we're trying to use it from there's examples. It'll show you what a fit counterfeit item might look like. It might show you what uh what an altered item might look like. Trying to think what else? You know, what are the things you should be looking for? Even talks about some of the services that could be available. Like again, we we are not going to recommend the provider, but like things like positive pay or pay positive pay are tools that you can use that that organizations can use to try and identify checks as the fraudule, right? And uh so there's some of that. But we get into you know, what are the latest trucks and uh trends in check fraud and then tips on identifying and mitigating those? Because ultimately at the end of the day, the goal is to try and prevent it. But if it's gonna happen, then there's got to be ways for you to mitigate it, right? Or you know, to take take the hit out of it or the pain out of it. So that's what we're doing there. So again, it's an old problem. Check is an old problem, but we're getting a lot of feedback on these toolkits. So I just mentioned to somebody this morning that our those the websites where we have these toolkits are our number one and number two most hit over the last couple of months. So there's a lot of people going there, which is great. I'm I'm excited to say that people are actually using them. We just put new material out on both of them mid-October. So just a couple of weeks ago. We first released them in May, but now we added more material, and we'll continue to do that. We're getting feedback from people. Now that they're starting to deuse them, you tend to get, hey, what about this or what about that? And so we're trying to do it in very consumable pieces of information. You don't have to read a white paper to learn about check fraud. We can give you an example or a video or you know, small examples, things like that versus having to read a book, right? That's we all don't have time to be reading a book. So this is why we've designed them this way. The other one, scams, scams have been around forever, right? And and it's nothing new. But what's happened is we've seen a surge in scams as well. And I and I would say there's a couple of reasons for that. And the same for the growth in check fraud. I think the root some of the reasons around it is the banks with digital payments have done a great job trying to keep the bad guys out and try to make the payments safe and secure. So if you think about it from a check fraud perspective, everyone was investing in digital technology and fraud solutions, maybe didn't do as much but checks because they're supposed to be going away. And it's also a paper item, right? So it's not secure. When you put a check in the mail, you have no idea how many people touch it before it gets to meet, right? And so there's no one chunking it necessarily. So anything could happen along the way, and so it's not as secure from that perspective. Scams, on the other hand, if you think about it, we've done a great job keeping people out. So what the fronters have kind of shifted again to is well, let me try and take advantage of Mike, the individual, right? I don't have to break into Mike's account if I can get Mike to log into his account and send the money out, right? So this whole scam thing has come about really, it's been around, like I said, forever, but it's been much, I don't know if you've noticed it, but you probably at least get one or two texts a day or several a week that are trying to get you to do something, to click on something, right? I got one yesterday. I was gonna do a presentation, and I got it right before the presentation. And it was from a company that I do have a relationship with, and it is a financial company, and it was telling me that the new account I had just set up was ready to be used. Well, obviously, I didn't set up a new account, right? They wanted me to click that button because once I did that, you know, like I didn't set up an account, right? Then they would hopefully get my credentials. Now they would be into my into my account and they could take my money at that point, right? So we've seen two things happen. One where the fraudsters are calling us or contacting us saying, you know, there's an emergency, you need to send money, you're gonna be arrested, Greg. Greg, you're gonna be arrested if you don't pay this money that's outstanding, right? Or hey, you didn't pay your taxes, there's gonna be a warrant issued, you better pay it. And so, you know, people are doing that. And unfortunately, people are doing that. And then on the flip side, we're seeing these events where it says this account has been opened in your name, you know, confirm it, or your package has been delayed, click on this to make sure, you know, when it's coming, and you start to give up credentials. So the fraudsters have really taken advantage of that. And so what we we heard is we really need to do something about. And so, similarly to check fraud, we built out these toolkits and we're trying to focus on things like the types of scams, the phishing and social engineering component to that, because we all use our phones nonstop, right? We're looking also at business email compromise, which, if if you remember, I said that's what kind of got me into fraud 15 years ago. I said, It's still growing today, right? So it's still a big thing. And and so it's not just consumers that are being impacted, businesses are being impacted as well. So they're so they're trying to deal with that. So we're we're trying to take all that into consideration. Similarly, we're putting it, you know, the toolkit consists of case studies, use cases, real-world examples, to try and illustrate how they operate, how the fraudsters are uh criminals are operating, and how they can be counted and mitigated as well. So it's long-winded, but we put a lot of time and energy into it, and I think we're getting some of the benefit back. And uh I've been speaking at a few conferences, and every time I show this to people, they're like, I see them with the cameras taking pictures, and I'm like, look, I'll give you the link. Okay, no worries, it's free, right? But but I see a lot of interest in people taking pictures and and trying to make sure they get to this. And then, you know, when they're out there, we are also saying, hey, if there's a case or something that you're interested in in the future, let us know. We'll see about how we can be able to incorporate it in.
SPEAKER_00:Well, all those things you mentioned have happened to me, right? On the personal side on my phone. I get, you know, with my business, I probably get two emails a day that are scams of some sort where they want me to click on something, you know, you opened this account or you know, whatever it may be, I get them all the time. Or your invoice won't be paid unless you press this button, you know, so all those kind of things. I see it all the time. And that information, you know, I think something important is hiring of that information. So sharing it about scams, fraud tactics, emerging trends, it's an industry challenge, right, that we all face. So what more do you think we can do as an industry to sort of collaborate in this area? And then how would greater transparency really make a difference?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a great question. I mentioned to you a second ago other countries are doing some they do information sharing when it comes to fraud, but they also have a very different infrastructure. And like I said, they have a few, it's much easier to share information between 10 banks than it is, you know, let's round it up, 10,000 banks, right? It's just a very different environment. Not only that, a lot of times some of the other countries, their government is mandating that they have to do some of that, right? If you think about our environment, we're very different in that not only do we have a federal government, but we have governments in 50 states. And there's privacy rules across 50 different states. I'm not saying there's 50 different versions, but they're different. And so it's not it's not as simple in the United States to just say, hey, we want everyone to share our information because we're very our structure is very different. I do personally believe that the sharing of information is critical in the success for us to to fight against the the fraudsters and criminals, but the reality is they are sharing. They don't have a problem sharing, Greg. They boast about it, in fact. They'll put YouTube videos up showing people how they did it, right? And look, it used to be that we would say, go to the dark web and you can learn this or you can buy this information. You don't even have to go down to the dark web now. There are videos on other platforms that that you can get to without going it, being uh uh you know, technically savvy trying to search and find it. So if they're sharing and they're saying, hey, this scam is working really well, they get on it in a hurry. What we're not doing is we're not saying, oh, they're hurting us with this scam, and we should tell everybody so that they can't hurt us. And so, in my opinion, it's critical that we try to get to that in that end state. A year ago, I had a work group made up of 30 different organizations from the US, and we actually spent time coming up with, we wrote a paper basically on what the recommendations we had for an information sharing type platform. And there's other folks out there doing the same thing in the country, trying to figure out how we can do this, how can we build uh some type of infrastructure where we could share information? You know, it doesn't have to be a centralized database. There's lots of different sharing. There's a lot of different ways you can crack this, but there's a way that we can share. I talk, it's interesting because I talked to a lot of smaller banks at these smaller conferences, and I always ask them, are you sharing information? And they, you know, people tend to think about tech technology and how are you doing. I said, and I and I literally stopped them and I said, Do you have a call once a month with your peers in the in the state or in the region? And surprisingly, a lot of hands go up, and they they are. So people at the grassroots level are doing what they need to try and help themselves, but what we what we're not successful in is how do you spread that across the whole country, right? And so I'm optimistic that we're moving in that right direction. You mentioned that you said the word transparency, and I do think collaboration is one component of this, and transparency is the other. And those are essential for us to effectively combat scams and fraud. You know, we need to be able to build better partnerships across the industry, partnerships, relationships, whatever you want to say. But it needs to be, we need to include groups like the financial institutions, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, and then social media, telecoms. You know, some of the other countries are trying to pull in telecoms and social media because we were just saying it. You get it on your phone device, right? There's a message that comes in. So it's part of it. That's where it, that's where it could start and then ultimately end up in the in the scam. So so I think that's all very important, but I do think it's great that there are you know some smaller groups out there, grassroots, little banks pulling themselves together and saying, let's share information. I do think it would be great if we could get into some industry-wide type forums at the minimum. So not everything has to be a technology solution. There can be forums and you know things of that nature where maybe we can, and I'm just sorry, I was thinking about your podcast. I'm like, you know, maybe there's information like that kind of thing that gets dispensed, but I don't know. I can't jump there right now. But uh the reality is how do you share the information to other folks in a way that is effective? Technology is definitely a way to do that. Technology is one that can help us get around some of the challenges of privacy rules, right? So today, if you think about the other thing that happens in fraud, is there's a lot of data breaches, right? Fraudsters like data breaches because they get information, right? You've probably, Greg, in the last year or so gotten a notice that probably said some of your data has been been exposed somewhere, right? I have multiple. And so, you know, our data is out there and the bad guys are sharing that and using it. So we can't just rely on the security around there. But if we can use other technology to try and protect our information, we don't need to share everything about Greg, right? We just need to share. We can if we share the pattern of the fraud or the scam or the insights, we don't necessarily have to share the personal information, right? And so there's ways to do that. You know, it's like one of those games where you have to get someone to understand what you're talking about without actually saying the word. I think that's where we are. We got to be able to get the message from me to you without actually giving the details of the individuals involved, right? So I think there's a way to do it. It just will take some time. But there are some technologies out there that are privacy-enhancing technologies that can encrypt information, can make it safer to share information. So my gut feel is over the next couple of years, we're gonna see some of that probably move in that direction. Other countries are definitely moving more to the transparency of sharing this information. So, how do we get the US there? And so before I retire, Greg, I would like to see that we are making progress in left front.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's let's hope that happens for sure. So, with the popularity of AI and with all the value that it can provide, there's also a negative side, and the criminals are taking advantage of that every day. What are your thoughts on AI and other technologies related to scams and fraud? What more can we be doing as an industry?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so first of all, I like I like AI. You know, I started using it a while back, and I I I think it's great. And I'm glad that my organization is now allowing us to use it internally and stuff too, right? I think the challenge with AI, you're absolutely right. It's got a lot of great benefits, and it's not new. I've been with the Fed seven years, and just before I left my my previous organization, we were implementing models at that point in time, you know. Fraud to help identify fraud. I'm sure they're so much better now than they were seven years ago. But nonetheless, we were doing that. And we realized that at that point in time that static type rules to identify fraudulent anomalies are great, but they don't have the flexibility around some of the AI, right? And so I think the bonus is that AI can help us look at the numbers of transactions because you've got to remember payment transactions have gone way up too, right? So to be able to look at more transactions quicker to look for anomalous activity is fantastic. There's a very upside in my mind of us evolving the technology and the tools that are there to try and stop fraud. But to your point, the negative side of it is the fraudsters are they are pretty much the first adopters of this type of technology, right? I mentioned my organization now uses it, allows us to use it, but it took a while to get there, Greg. It wasn't like day one they said, hey, everyone can use it. There was a whole evaluation. Are we secure? Is it, you know, is it vetted? Does it do all these things? But if I'm a criminal, I necessarily care about some of that, right? I just go right ahead and and do it and see what kind of benefit I get out of it. If it doesn't work, I'll find something else. And so the challenge, you know, if you think about that, is they're finding fraud oftentimes is reactive and it's hard, right? So I think the AI really allows us to be much faster in what we do. But I'm I have this feeling we're always playing catch up to to the bad guys. And maybe we're paying catch up and the the gap is becoming less. And if if that happens, I think that's a positive for us. Because anytime you can at least shorten that that gap, it means we're doing something right. And you know, there's definitely a better chance to retrieve funds and stop things if you can close that window down a little bit. So I do think that the tools will continue to evolve. Look, we where have we gone in the last year and a half with with some of the AI tools we're using? It seems like we just they just came out and now everyone's using it, right? And so I think we'll see more of that. I'm optimistic that the new AI-driven solutions will be there. And going back to the previous question, Greg, I think we're going to be able to use that for information sharing in some form or fashion to do it in a way that we can share our findings, that ultimately that will allow us to lead to better fraud prevention solutions. Right. So I think I think the models will be better, the response times will be better, but I think we'll just have to keep pounding away at it and keep trying to evolve because the criminals aren't going to stop, is the problem, right? And as I think uh earlier on I mentioned that you know the banks have done a great job of trying to keep bad guys out. So what did they do? They found another way. They went to checks and scamps. We're gonna do a great job doing some of this other stuff, and they're gonna be like water, and they're gonna find the way around it, right? And so we can never let our guard down, is what it's gonna boil down to. No matter how good we get, they're gonna find something that we're gonna have to try and address.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So, Mike, one last question for you. What is the one takeaway you'd like our listeners to come away with from this episode when they're thinking about, you know, scams and fraud?
SPEAKER_01:Well, one is always hard, right?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, three's okay then.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so let me let me say I think the importance of being vigilant when it comes to fraud is is important. I also think that fraud is not just my job as a fraud person, it's your job and it's the next person's job. It's every within an organization, it's everyone's job, all right? Because like if I am the fraud department, I personally think I should be letting other people in the in the in the business know what are things that can happen so that they're aware. And it might help them in their personal life, but it might help them in our business as well. If they know, like if all of a sudden they know that it could protect them, right? There's a reason why we all get kind of trained within our organizations to look for fishing and things like that. But I think that's that helps build us the knowledge base, but then we also have to be vigilant in knowing that it could happen at any point in time, right? So that's that's my one thing. The second one is the continuation of learning and education and understanding that we can't just learn it today and expect that's the way it is. The frosters are evolving and adapting, and so we have to continue. It's a continuous process, I guess is what I'm getting at. So we need to think about our security protocols. We need to think about how do we learn, how do we stay abreast of new fraud prevention technologies, new fraud schemes and scams. How do we bring all that around so that we we don't fall behind? Right? We're making a lot of good progress, but we got to continue to keep doing it. The last thing I would say goes back to your question about, well, you kind of asked these questions was collaboration and information sharing. And I honestly think if there's an opportunity for you, even if it's within your organization, as a small ecosystem or within your city or your state, to try and collaborate with people and share what's going on. Again, you don't have to say Mike Kimmy's the criminal, but you might be saying, hey, we see this type of activity. Are you seeing that? If they say no, then you go, oh, well, you might be interested because this is how they're operating. Yeah, even if you just tell the person about how the scam is happening, it helps them. They just learned something. And so going back to that, so I think the vigilance and education is one of them. I think the staying on top of new trends and things out there is important. And then the collaboration and from sharing would be my third one. If you ask me, and this is maybe what you did ask me, if you said, Mike, if you had the magic wand, because sometimes my question comes up, my answer to that question would be that we would have an inf information sharing model of some sort that allowed us to real-time share productivity. So that was a different answer to a different question. I know you didn't answer it, ask it, but I gave you an answer anyway.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's great. I I and I think you know what, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show. So, Mike, thank you so much for being here. I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you doing the show today.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about the work that we're trying to do with the Fed. And it's been a pleasure. Nice meeting you, Greg, and uh I'll be listening.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, great. Thank you so much. And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well. And until the next story.