The Federal Bureau of Investigation has approximately 30,000 computerized robbery case files that banks use to get details about crimes and arrests. But due to scant resources and limitations on technology, much of the data in the system falls woefully short of what the banking industry needs.
In some cases, the information is incomplete or outdated because local law enforcement officials are slow in reporting robberies to the FBI. And the antiquated system makes it difficult to analyze the data for emerging trends.
"Some information that's important for us is not in the current reporting," says Stephanie Clarke, the Tacoma, Wash.-based national manager for physical security services at KeyBank in Cleveland. "Things like, what contributed to an arrest, how was that person arrested, and was it from security measures we had in place?"
So Clarke and other security officials at major banks are spearheading a project with the American Bankers Association to develop a more modern robbery database. Two years in the making, the system, called BanCAPture, allows banks to submit robbery details directly to the FBI, rather than through local law enforcement agencies, so that the bureau can more quickly analyze the data and help banks improve their security. Just as importantly, the database will also allow banks to share crime information with each other, oftentimes leading to more immediate alerts to potential threats in banks' geographic areas.
"It gives us a much better means to clearly identify and analyze trends that are occurring, and to quickly recognize where we're having an increase in robberies," says Terry Huskey, a Charlotte, N.C.-based senior vice president and physical security director for Wells Fargo. "It also offers us an opportunity to join forces and tackle the problem together as opposed to try to adjust it individually."
Though BanCAPture is technically still in a test phase, several large banks are already using it-enough so that data can come in from 40 percent of the nation's branches.
The ABA says the database will be made available to all banks, thrifts and credit unions this summer. The cost of maintaining the database will be covered by annual subscription fees.
According to the president and CEO of the data management vendor behind BanCAPture, the system allows users to easily submit information about robberies that occur in their branches and to order custom reports analyzing robberies across the country. "The real value comes in two places," says Kevin McMenimen of Enabl-U Technologies of Plainview, N.Y. "I know events are happening in my area, so I can protect my people and my brand. The other one is on resource allocation. Now I can look at this information, what's working and what's not."
The BanCAPture dashboard system is meant to be used by designated security officials at participating banks. When doing research, they get a hodge-podge of choices on how to break down data. Robbery statistics can be parsed by time, geography, monetary losses, event resolution, and other factors. "If users want to know the number of robberies over the last month committed with a weapon or those where the stickup men used only a note to the teller, they can pull those up," says McMenimen.
Maps can be color-coded to show when and where robberies have been reported more frequently—indicating serial robber activity—and can display satellite photography so users can study the outline of a bank where a robbery took place. "If you're reading about what happened and want to figure out why they went out the northeast entrance, well, you could see it happens to be next to a highway."
