As all of you know, banking is changing at an ever quickening pace. Technology has dramatically revolutionized the payments system in our country and throughout the world, and these changes have not only decreased the amount of time necessary for a customer to make a payment from their account, but it has also made available to the customer nearly instantaneous reporting of transactions through online and mobile banking. Not that many years ago, customers primarily withdrew funds from their accounts by writing checks and visiting ATMs, and reconciled their account transactions to monthly paper statements in order to identify any withdrawals from their account that were not properly authorized. Customers now have myriad ways to withdraw funds from their account through debit cards, ACH transactions, and even real-time payments, and those transactions can often be reported to the customer immediately through online banking or a bank's mobile app. Considering that, it is ironic that one of the more common account frauds today is the good old-fashioned check fraud. The use of the US mail as a means for committing such check fraud was even the subject of a recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network alert that is addressed more specifically in this month's Compliance Update. Continue reading >