Customer service

Credit unions have achieved success in areas like auto and consumer loans but there is still room for them to increase their home lending.

Companies are turning off prospective customers and employees with misguided approaches.

Community banks and credit unions are eager to innovate, but technology upgrades must be done first, says Bruce Lowthers, FIS banking solutions president.

Some credit unions are experimenting with ambient scenting – adding distinctive but unobtrusive smells – in their branches. While those fragrances are meant to reinforce the institution’s brand, they could also have unintended negative effects.

Though synthetic identity fraud is down across the industry, there's been an uptick in such attacks targeting credit unions.

NatWest is expanding its test of cards that use biometric fingerprints to authorize transactions, citing expanded use cases for contactless payments in the U.K.

Seeking relief from rising synthetic fraud, U.S. companies next year will be able to quickly verify whether Social Security numbers match other consumer data in government files, in a bid to thwart fraudsters from creating fake identities with stolen information and SSNs.

Fincen and others say third parties are proving to be treasure chests for crooks who create synthetic identities, but aggregators argue they help detect risk banks can’t see.

Visa is leaning more heavily on its Issuers’ Clearinghouse Service to help banks combat the rise of synthetic fraud, which it attributes in part to a security measure adopted by the Social Security Administration years ago.

"You can get a lot done if you don't care who gets the credit," Stevens is fond of saying. Judging by the pace of innovation at the $169 billion-asset Fifth Third, that team-first message is clearly resonating.