Fraud Forward

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

This one started with a can of hairspray. Jen Lamont and I were getting ready for a networking event, and somehow a conversation about hair products turned into a conversation about the future of fraud prevention in banking. Because we ended up talking about her mom. A career teller in banking for decades. Someone who knew multiple generations of families, who turned down promotions to stay at the window because she loved the people, who took pride in the role in ways that I think a lot of institutions have quietly trained out of the job.

And that got me asking a question I haven't been able to shake since: have we made it harder for the people closest to our customers to actually see them?

We still call tellers our first line of defense. But we've also loaded that line with sales goals, referral quotas, transaction time expectations, compliance responsibilities, and lobby metrics. Meanwhile, fraud has gotten more human than ever. Scammers aren't just stealing credentials anymore. They're manipulating customers into moving the money themselves. And the only person standing between a coached customer and a wire going out the door is often a teller who has been measured on everything except whether they noticed something felt wrong.

Jen brings a perspective to this conversation that I think is rare and really important. She's a fraud professional who grew up watching her mom build a full career at the teller window. She's seen what that role looks like when it's valued, and she's spent years as a practitioner trying to figure out how to rebuild some of that in institutions where the teller role has shifted into something almost unrecognizable.

This is not a conversation about blame. It's a conversation about what we've inherited, what we're still questioning, and what we could do differently.

• Why Jen's mom's career as a teller, and the pride she took in that role, is the lens for this entire conversation
• How teller performance metrics in banking have shifted from relationship quality to sales and efficiency, and what that costs us in fraud prevention
• A real wire fraud scenario that shows exactly what happens when a teller has a bad feeling but no clear authority or path to act on it
• Why the authorized versus unauthorized distinction misses the coercion behind authorized push payment scams
• What tellers can see that transaction monitoring systems miss, including behavioral fraud signals, coached customer body language, and vague answers to routine questions
• Why Jen sent a $35,000 wire she knew was fraud early in her career, and what changed after that
• What a direct escalation path to the fraud team actually needs to look like, and why ticketing systems are not enough
• Why prevented scam losses should count as strongly as product referrals on a teller scorecard
• What a senior teller career path and frontline fraud specialist role could actually look like
• The phrase you should keep in your pocket for any frontline employee dealing with a suspicious transaction

• Work in fraud or risk and want to understand what the career teller in banking brings to your fraud prevention program that your systems cannot replicate
• Lead a branch, manage frontline staff, or set teller performance metrics and want to know whether your scorecards are creating conflict between service speed and teller scam detection
• Are trying to build a better escalation path between your frontline and your fraud team
• Want practical, actionable recommendations you can bring back to your institution this week
• Have ever seen a scam succeed because the teller had the right instinct and no room to act on it
• Are building a fraud ambassador program or a senior teller fraud specialist role and want a framework for thinking through it
• Care about the human cost of fraud and want to hear a conversation about it from people who have sat with those losses

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

Community banks know they need digital transformation in banking to stay competitive. They also know one bad launch can overwhelm a fraud team, frustrate customers, and torch years of trust. So today we're going beyond the headline case study to unpack how one community bank actually pulled it off.

I'm joined by Omar Hamden, Chief Experience Officer at Vault.Bank, and Jorge Garcia, CEO of Linker Finance, to talk about how a 120-year-old community bank in Broadhead, Wisconsin turned itself into a digital brand, without opening the door to the fraud everyone assumes comes with it.

Omar didn’t want a system that approved everyone or treated every customer like a suspect. He wanted risk-based account opening that could actually tell the difference, and it worked. Fraud losses in digital banking at Vault have stayed close to zero since launch, with onboarding now taking about three minutes, funding included.

Most banks assume digital growth means a bigger fraud team. Vault runs its entire fraud and onboarding operation with two people. That's it. No army of analysts, just the right core banking integration and automation in place from day one.

Jorge breaks down why vendor selection for community bank leaders, not the technology, is usually the real blocker for community banks trying to launch digitally, and how Linker built a turnkey approach so Vault didn't have to stitch together a dozen point solutions on its own.

The numbers back all of it up. Vault grew deposits 16% year over year, five times its prior growth rate, and customer retention rate sits close to 90%. If your institution is weighing a digital brand launch in community banking, this digital banking case study is the one to send to your board.

• How Vault.Bank and Linker Finance came together to launch a digital-only brand for a community bank under $300 million in assets.
• Why risk-based account opening matters more than trying to hit zero fraud alerts.
• How identity verification and KYC digital onboarding got built to satisfy auditors without slowing down real customers.
• Why Vault runs its entire fraud and onboarding operation with a team of two people, and how core banking integration and automated decisioning make that possible.
• How vendor selection for community bank leaders became the real blocker in digital brand launches, more than the technology itself.
• The deposit growth strategies for banks that helped Vault grow deposits 16% year over year, five times its prior growth rate.
• Why customer retention rate matters just as much as acquisition, and how nearly 90% retention changed the growth conversation.
• What's next as Vault plans national digital banking expansion beyond Wisconsin.

• Community bank leaders considering a digital brand launch in community banking.
• Fraud and risk professionals evaluating fraud losses in digital banking and looking for real, verifiable numbers.
• Bank executives weighing vendor selection for community bank technology partnerships.
• Anyone curious how lean fraud team operations actually work without a large analyst team.
• Community banks exploring small business lending and neobank technology in community banks as growth levers.
• Boards and leadership teams trying to build the business case for bank compliance automation and best of breed banking technology.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

This episode opens a little differently. And if you are not paying close attention, you will probably believe it was me. It sounds like me, it looks like me, but every bit of it is a deepfake created with artificial intelligence in about twenty minutes for less than five dollars. That is not a future threat. That is today.

Andrew Austin is one of my favorite people to talk to because he does not do hype. He spends a lot of time exploring where emerging technology meets fraud risk. And this is one of the most practical conversations I have had on the show. We are not here to scare anyone. We are here to make sure fraud fighters understand exactly what they are up against and how organizations need to start thinking differently about deepfake fraud and AI voice cloning.

We walk through the full landscape of deepfake technology together, from voice cloning to live face swapping to lip sync. We talk about what each one costs, how convincing each one is, and where criminals are already using deepfake scams today. Andrew breaks down why identity verification is the most vulnerable point for financial institutions right now, why real time detection of AI-generated content is still an unsolved problem, and why fraudsters do not need Hollywood quality deepfakes to be effective. They just need to be convincing enough.

We do not stop at the threat. We spend the second half of the conversation talking about defenses, device intelligence, behavioral biometrics, consortium data, friction design, and why employee awareness and organizational culture still matter as much as any technology investment. Andrew also shares what excites him about where AI is headed on the fraud fighting side, and what he thinks every CISO should already have on their roadmap to combat AI fraud.

Fraud has always been built on manipulating trust. AI does not change that. It just gives criminals a far more convincing disguise.

• How Andrew created a convincing deepfake in twenty minutes for less than five dollars, and what that means for fraud teams
• The difference between voice cloning, live face swapping, and lip sync technology, and the distinct fraud risk each one creates
• Why deepfake scams do not need to be perfect to work, and how criminals are already exploiting that reality
• Where financial institutions are most vulnerable to AI-generated content right now, and why onboarding and IDV top the list
• Why real time detection of AI-generated video content is still not a solved problem
• How device intelligence, behavioral biometrics, and consortium data work together to close the gaps IDV alone cannot cover
• Why employee awareness and organizational culture are just as important as any technology investment
• What Andrew thinks every CISO should already have on their roadmap to combat AI fraud
• Where AI is creating real operational efficiency gains on the fraud fighting side, and why Andrew is genuinely excited about it

• Lead fraud, risk, compliance, or financial crimes at a bank, credit union, fintech, or neobank
• Are responsible for identity verification, onboarding design, or authentication strategy
• Want a practical, non-sensational breakdown of what deepfake scams and AI voice cloning actually look like today
• Are building or updating your fraud program and want to understand where AI fraud risk fits into your existing controls
• Are new to fraud and want to understand how emerging technology is reshaping what fraud fighters need to know

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

I always say fraud is a team sport, and this episode is exactly why.

I recorded these conversations live from the ACFE fraud conference in Boston, sitting down with five fraud fighters who each bring a completely different piece of the puzzle. Law enforcement. Banking. Government. Fintech. BSA. Investigations. Every single one of them came back to the same point: we cannot fight fraud alone, and the silos we work in are one of the biggest advantages we are handing to fraudsters.

Marc Evans opened the conversation by making the case that fraud analyst training has to be rooted in real cases, not theory. Linda Miller followed with one of the most honest takes of the day: the organizations waiting for regulatory guidance before building their AI governance frameworks are already behind. Tracy Swaim added something I had never heard framed so cleanly, that document fraud is a context problem, not a technology problem. And Dustin Eaton brought it back to the data: clean, collective information is the edge, and fraudsters are counting on us not having it.

Jen Lamont closed it out with a reminder that hit close to home. For every fraud fighter who cannot make it to a conference like this, the knowledge is still out there. Podcasts, white papers, LinkedIn, local and international fraud associations. This community is one of the most generous there is.

And if there is one thing I took away from all five conversations, it is this: fraudsters share everything with each other. Until we do the same, we are always playing catch-up.

• Why the ACFE fraud conference brings together fraud fighters from banking, government, law enforcement, fintech, and investigations under one roof
• How cross-sector fraud prevention helps organizations identify emerging threats faster
• Why breaking silos in fraud is one of the biggest opportunities facing our industry right now
• What Marc Evans has learned training new fraud analysts using real investigations and holistic case data
• Why AI governance is outpacing organizational readiness, and what Linda Miller says financial institutions should do before regulations catch up
• How Tracy Swaim reframes document fraud detection around interrogating context rather than authenticating the document itself
• Why clean and connected data is the foundation of effective AI-driven fraud prevention, according to Dustin Eaton
• How Jen Lamont approaches fraud analyst training, mentorship, and continuous learning for fraud teams at every level
• Career advice for new fraud fighters from five professionals who have built careers across every corner of this industry

• Attend fraud conferences and want practical ideas you can bring back to your team
• Lead a fraud, investigations, risk, or financial crimes program and want to strengthen cross-sector fraud prevention
• Are responsible for fraud analyst training or new fraud analyst onboarding
• Want to understand how AI governance and deepfake document fraud are reshaping the threat landscape
• Are early in your fraud career and want honest advice from professionals across banking, government, law enforcement, and fintech

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

This episode is a little different, and honestly, a lot of fun. We recorded this one live from the ACFE conference while playing a game of Uno. And if you've worked in fraud long enough, you already know why that felt like the perfect setup. Just when you think you've figured everything out, someone throws down a reverse card, the rules change, and suddenly you're solving a completely different problem.

Joining me are three incredible fraud leaders: Karen Boyer, Steve Lenderman, and Jen Lamont. What starts as a lighthearted game quickly turns into a candid conversation about some of the biggest questions facing fraud teams today. From agentic AI fraud and synthetic identity fraud to fraud leadership, analyst development, scam prevention, and where human expertise still matters most.

One thing I loved about this conversation is that there was no script. Just practitioners sharing honest opinions about what's changing, what's overhyped, and what they believe will define the next generation of fraud prevention.

• Why agentic AI fraud could reshape the future of synthetic identity fraud
• The growing risks surrounding synthetic agents fraud and autonomous digital identities
• Why human in the loop AI remains critical for fraud prevention
• Whether AI should investigate alerts or focus on SAR automation
• The future role of fraud analysts in an AI-driven industry
• Why check fraud continues to frustrate fraud professionals
• The value of networking, mentorship, and industry collaboration

• Lead a fraud prevention, investigations, risk, or financial crimes team and want to hear how other practitioners are thinking about agentic AI fraud and the future of the industry.
• Are exploring how AI in fraud, machine learning fraud detection, and fraud detection automation can improve operations without losing the value of human expertise.
• Want a practical discussion on synthetic identity fraud, synthetic agents fraud, and the next generation fraud threats that financial institutions should be preparing for.
• Are evaluating where human in the loop AI, AI fraud alert triage, AI writing SARs, and SAR automation fit into your fraud program—and where human judgment should remain at the center.
• Enjoy candid conversations between experienced fraud professionals on leadership, analyst development, fraud education, and the real challenges shaping modern fraud prevention.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

Over the last few months, I've had more conversations about agentic payments than just about any other topic. At conferences, on webinars, and in discussions with some of the smartest people in payments, compliance, and fraud, one thing has become clear to me: I think we're asking the wrong question.

Most people want to know whether AI will start moving money.

The question I keep coming back to is this: How do fraud teams investigate transactions when software starts making decisions?

In this solo episode, I pull together insights from recent conversations with Matt Vega, Mary Ann Miller, and Matt Janiga to explore what agentic commerce really means for fraud investigations, SAR reporting, and the future of financial crime investigations. We talk about why traditional fraud models have always assumed a human initiated the payment, why that assumption no longer holds, and what investigators will need to understand when AI agents begin making decisions on behalf of customers.

The technology may be changing, but the principles of good fraud prevention are not. Documentation, audit trails, authority management, explainability, and strong transaction monitoring will become even more important as agentic payments move from theory to reality.

• Why agentic payments are fundamentally different from traditional payment automation.
• How agentic commerce changes the way fraud teams investigate payment fraud.
• Why audit trails, attribution, and explainability will become essential during fraud investigations.
• How SAR reporting and AML investigations may evolve as AI becomes part of the payment decision process.
• Why regulators are focused on enabling innovation safely instead of slowing it down.
• The three questions every fraud investigator should begin asking today to prepare for the future.

• Work in fraud prevention, AML compliance, investigations, or financial crime.
• File suspicious activity reports or conduct SAR reporting.
• Lead fraud operations, transaction monitoring, or payment investigations.
• Are evaluating how AI and agentic commerce will affect your institution.
• Want practical steps your team can begin implementing today instead of waiting for the rulebook to catch up.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Mudassar Malik, Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service and Founder and CEO of Deconflict.com, to talk about something our industry needs to get a whole lot better at: financial crime deconflict.

Money mule networks do not care where one institution’s visibility ends and another one begins. Pig butchering scams, romance scams, business email compromise, BEC fraud, account takeover, wire fraud, they all move across people, accounts, institutions, platforms, and jurisdictions. Meanwhile, too many of us are still trying to solve pieces of the same case from opposite sides of the wall.

Mudassar walks us through what happens when law enforcement and banking actually have a better way to connect investigative intelligence, share what they are seeing, and recognize when different teams may be looking at the same financial crime pattern from different angles.

This episode is not about sharing everything with everybody. It is about better fraud response, better financial crime intelligence, and better collaboration between the people who are already fighting the same criminal networks. Because if a credit union, a community bank, a larger institution, and law enforcement are all seeing pieces of the same mule activity, but nobody can connect those pieces fast enough, the criminals keep moving. And the victims keep paying for it.

• Why financial crime deconflict matters for banks, credit unions, fintechs, and law enforcement
• How the Deconflict platform helps connect investigative intelligence across financial crime cases
• Why money mule networks, pig butchering scams, romance scams, and BEC fraud require cross-institutional visibility
• Where 314(b)d information sharing fits into the larger fraud response conversation
• Why financial institution fraud prevention cannot stop at the edge of one institution’s data
• How law enforcement data sharing can help fraud fighters move from isolated cases to connected intelligence
• What teams can take back to think differently about collaboration and case escalation

• Work in fraud, BSA, AML, investigations, or financial crime intelligence at a bank or credit union
• Are trying to improve financial institution fraud prevention without adding more disconnected alerts
• Support fraud response for scams, mule activity, business email compromise, or suspicious account movement
• Want a better way to think about law enforcement data sharing and investigative collaboration

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

Today we are talking about ACH compliance, and I know that may not sound like the most exciting opener in the world, but if you work in fraud, payments, operations, compliance, treasury, management, or anywhere near ACH this matters because ACH is one of the most widely used payment rails in the country. And when something goes wrong, it doesn’t just stay contained to one team. It impacts customers, creates operational strain, introduces regulatory risk, and can expose gaps in how your institution detects and responds to fraud.

Over the last few months, I have had conversation after conversation with fraud leaders at community banks and credit unions who are asking the same questions. Do we need new technology? Are we expected to monitor every ACH transaction in real time? What exactly are examiners going to expect from us? And if your head has been spinning a little bit, I want you to hear me on this: you are not alone.

This episode is about the real story behind NACHA Phase 2. And to me, the real story is not that every institution needs to run out and buy another fraud platform. The real story is that ACH compliance is becoming a much more intentional conversation. It is about knowing your risk, documenting your processes, understanding who owns what, and being able to explain why your institution monitors ACH fraud the way that it does.

I actually think that is a good thing. Because for too long, our industry has leaned on liability as the finish line. If we are not liable, it is not really our problem. And technically, maybe sometimes that has been true. But operationally, ethically, and from a fraud fighter perspective, that has never sat well with me.

Fraud does not live in silos. Neither should ACH fraud prevention.

• Why NACHA Phase 2 is about intentionality, not just technology
• What changed in the final Nacha ACH rules and why that flexibility matters
• How ACH compliance applies to community banks and credit unions now in scope
• Why layered controls do not always mean buying another vendor solution
• How false pretenses fit into ACH fraud detection and ACH fraud prevention
• Why RDFI compliance and ODFI compliance require clear ownership across teams
• What examiners may expect when reviewing your ACH compliance program
• Five questions every institution should ask about ACH fraud documentation

• You work in fraud operations, payments compliance, ACH operations, BSA, AML, or treasury management
• Your institution is working through NACHA Phase 2 implementation
• You are trying to understand ACH examiner expectations without overbuilding your program
• You serve a community bank or credit union and need practical ACH compliance guidance
• You want to move from a liability mindset to a visibility mindset in payments fraud

If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward:

Y’all, this episode is one of those conversations where I found myself taking notes while we were recording. Matt Janiga from Modern Treasury joined me to talk about hidden fraud infrastructure.

We talk all the time about faster payments, one API, better vendor tooling, AI agents, global money movement, and payment modernization. But underneath all of that is a much more complicated reality. There are payment rails, reversibility rules, KYC requirements, digital fingerprints, transaction monitoring decisions, consortium data, fraud operations workflows, and infrastructure choices that determine what fraud teams can actually see and stop.

And here is the thing: fraud does not live in silos, and neither does the infrastructure that moves money.

Matt has worked across regulation, fintech infrastructure, compliance, payments, and risk, with experience touching Dodd-Frank, Square, Stripe, Lithic, and now Modern Treasury. So this conversation gives us a really practical look at how the industry moved from the pre-vendor world, where teams were basically building fraud and compliance tools from scratch, into a world where specialized partners, orchestration layers, and agentic AI are changing what fraud teams can do.

For my credit union and community bank folks especially, this matters because you do not have to build everything alone anymore. A rising tide lifts all boats, and the more we understand the hidden fraud infrastructure behind modern payments, the better we can ask questions, pressure test controls, and protect the people we serve.

• How Dodd-Frank and post-crisis regulation helped shape the fintech ecosystem we know today
• Why banks stepping away from certain customer needs opened the door for fintech growth
• What the pre-vendor world looked like for fraud and compliance teams building tools from scratch
• Why fraud vendor infrastructure, orchestration layers, and fraud consortium data changed the way teams manage risk
• What fraud teams miss when they hear “one API” and assume payment infrastructure is simple
• How payment rail reversibility, ACH fraud, Reg E fraud, and tokenized credentials create hidden operational risk
• Why global USD accounts and global money movement require strong digital fingerprinting and risk-based controls
• How agentic AI fraud tools may reshape investigations, fraud operations, and human review over the next five years
• Why the “front door” is one of the most important places to invest when building a fraud program

• Work in fraud operations, payments, fintech, banking, risk, or compliance
• Want to better understand the hidden fraud infrastructure behind modern payments infrastructure
• Are evaluating fraud tooling, fraud vendor infrastructure, or payment orchestration partners
• Need a clearer view of payment rail reversibility, ACH reversibility, Reg E fraud, or global money movement risk
• Are thinking about agentic AI fraud, AI fraud agents, digital fingerprinting, and where humans should remain in the loop

What’s up, fraud fighters, and welcome to Fraud Forward.

In this episode, I am sitting down with Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the criminal investigations group for the United States Postal Inspection Service, to talk about something I think way too many fraud teams overlook: USPIS financial crime.

When financial crime escalates, most of us immediately think FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security, or local law enforcement. And listen, those partners matter. But the Postal Inspection Service is one of the most powerful investigative partners in financial crime investigations, especially when mail theft, check fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, identity theft, money laundering, or organized fraud networks are part of the picture.

This conversation is about more than stolen mail or missing packages. It is about how physical infrastructure still connects to modern financial institution fraud, how fraud teams can build stronger law enforcement partnerships, and why collaboration has to happen before the big case hits your desk.

Because behind every fraud case is a real person. A member. A customer. A family. A business. Someone whose trust, dignity, and financial stability may have been shaken in a way they will never forget.

And we, fraud fighters, have a responsibility to do something about that.

• A practical breakdown of how USPIS financial crime investigations work
• Why the United States Postal Inspection Service matters to banks, credit unions, fintechs, and payments companies
• How mail theft connects to check fraud, mail fraud, identity theft, bank fraud, and money laundering
• Why physical mail still matters, even in a digital fraud environment
• How organized fraud networks use stolen mail, altered checks, social media, and other channels to scale financial crime
• What makes a strong fraud referral to law enforcement
• Why relationship building matters before major fraud investigations happen
• How IAFCI and other industry networks help financial crime investigators connect the dots
• Why criminals are using social media, Telegram, and other platforms to organize fraud activity
• How AI and agentic AI are changing the future of financial crime investigations
• Why human oversight still matters when we use technology to fight fraud

• Fraud fighters at banks and credit unions
• Community bank and credit union leaders
• BSA, AML, fraud, and compliance teams
• Fintech and payments risk teams
• Financial crime investigators
• Frontline teams who see suspicious activity before anyone else does
• Law enforcement partners working fraud investigations and financial crime cases
• Risk leaders trying to improve referral and escalation processes
• Anyone responsible for fraud prevention, investigation, intelligence sharing, or victim support

This episode is for the teams who are trying to protect people in the middle of a fraud landscape that is moving fast.