PHOENIX-A new Web site is offering resources on risk management, fraud and input from law enforcement agencies.
The site, from the Credit Union Risk Council, has backing from a number of companies and CUSOs. Steve Ruwe, chief risk officer for PSCU Financial Services-one of the participating CUSOs-called the site the council's most significant step forward since forming in 2008.
Other backers include The Members Group, CUNA Mutual, and Card Services for Credit Unions. Ruwe noted that part of what makes the CURC and its Web site such a solid resource is that a number of federal law enforcement agencies have been brought on in an advisory capacity, including the FBI and the Secret Service. Visa and MasterCard also participate in an advisor capacity.
"What's unique about the CURC is that these [CUSOs] were organizations that normally compete with one another," he said. "But as it applies to risk, we saw that as a non-competitive effort where we could all benefit our common constituency."
Ruwe explained that instead of getting into the everyday management issues for dealing with fraud, the site and the council aim to "stay at industry level issues in an advocacy role for credit unions. If you look across the spectrum, there's plenty of sites out there that have a commercial agenda, but we wanted to establish something with no commercial agenda that would be a resource to credit unions around risk and fraud prevention."
The site is also meant to assist law enforcement in contacting the correct people when investigating fraud, and also features a forum for the exchange of best practices and other ideas. "If we had another [data breach such as] Michaels, we'd like to get people to the point where they would go to the CURC looking for the best information, and maybe use that forum around event-driven items," said Ruwe.
The free forum, along with select other parts of the site, requires users to create a username and password for access. It was developed by Rhizome, a Seattle-based Web design firm, and was paid for by the CUSOs that make up the Risk Council.
"The common thread is that at the end of the day we're trying to mitigate and minimize losses" for the movement, said Ruwe, explaining the organization will remain focused on its core mission. "We don't talk about interchange, for example," said Ruwe. "That's a pricing thing that's now become a regulatory thing" and is outside realm where the group is best positioned to assist CUs.
