Fed announces tools to help payments industry classify fraud

Federal Issues Federal Reserve Fraud Payments

On June 18, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) released a set of tools and materials to provide a consistent way for organizations to classify and better understand fraudulent activity occurring across the payments industry. The FraudClassifier model was developed by the Fraud Definitions Work Group (comprised of Fed and payment industry fraud experts), and will allow organizations to classify fraud independently of payment type, payment channel, or other payment characteristics by presenting a series of questions, beginning with who initiated the payment to differentiate payments initiated by authorized or unauthorized parties. This will “help ensure greater internal consistency in fraud classification across an organization. . .and allow for improved information and fraud tracking.” Each of the classifications is supported by definitions that allow the FraudClassifier model to be consistently applied across the industry.