Communication Federal Credit Union (CFCU), originally Pioneer Bell Credit Union, was founded by employees of Southwestern Bell Telephone in downtown Oklahoma City in 1939. CFCU is a full-service credit union with approximately 270 employees and 22 branches in Oklahoma and Kansas, serving around 120,000 members.
CFCU has always prioritized fraud prevention and risk management, and Nathan Blais, Senior Vice President Risk Management, explained how they evaluated and chose Advanced Fraud Solutions (AFS) for their fraud mitigation needs.
Initially, they looked into AFS to assist in automation with Check 21 processing guidelines and standards. During their due diligence process, they found AFS to also be a valuable partner for fraud mitigation on checks accepted at branches where automated fraud prevention tools had not been used before. Upon carefully reviewing the providers in the fraud prevention landscape, in 2017 CFCU implemented AFS’ TrueChecks® solution and has been a valued customer since.
The solution
After implementing TrueChecks for check fraud prevention, the credit union expanded its efforts with the implementation of TrueACH for ACH fraud prevention, especially after their digital banking conversion to Alkami. CFCU was looking for a solution to monitor any high-risk ACH transfers or detect any obviously fraudulent transfers before sending them out.
Implementing a fraud prevention solution for a financial institution can cause resistance over the administrative overhead. However, in the case of CFCU, alert volumes are easily managed and balanced. CFCU used suppression rules to tune their alerts and stay in communication with their branch teams to determine when they needed to override or not override alerts based on member history and circumstances.
To ensure full benefit of the solutions, the credit union’s training team included TrueChecks and TrueACH in their new hire orientation process, and the electronic services team was trained on how to read batch alerts for remote deposit capture and TrueACH alerts.
“The system is easy to use and intuitive.” – Nathan Blais, Senior Vice President Risk Management, CFCU
The results
- For ACH fraud prevention, CFCU already credits the newly implemented TrueACH with a potential loss avoidance of $42,000 within the first year.
- For check fraud prevention, the financial institution was able to report a total number of high-risk and/or denied check recommendations at $2.3 million.
While the loss prevention is clear, Blais further emphasized that AFS is a valued partner for the long term. Communication Federal Credit Union was impressed not only by the effectiveness of Advanced Fraud Solutions’ TrueChecks and TrueACH products but also by the company’s customer service.
As Blais noted, “AFS is easy to work with in helping resolve any questions or concerns you have. They are very supportive and willing to provide assistance during and after implementation, and if you have any challenges to work through.” This level of support and responsiveness from Advanced Fraud Solutions helped ensure a seamless implementation and a successful outcome for CFCU.
