The power of partnership! Synergent and Fiserv are proud to team up in offering a new, complimentary webinar series geared towards payments professionals. This thought leadership series provides timely, relevant updates intended to help credit unions enhance, grow, and protect their payments programs.

“It is important to be able to access the latest payments information in an interactive way that allows for Q&A,” stated Rebekah Higgins, Synergent’s Payment and Fraud Consultant. “The payments space is quickly evolving. Whether seasoned professionals or new credit union staff participate, there are valuable takeaways and tips for all that can be put into practice immediately. Being aware helps credit unions maximize all of the tools and resources available to them.”

First Webinar: Fraud and Risk Overview – Trends to Watch

The inaugural webinar, Fraud and Risk Overview: Trends to Watch, was held on September 24. Higgins kicked off the series with a welcome to attendees. Lynn Dufrane, Fiserv’s Director of Client Management, then covered the SpendTrend update highlighting new spending trends resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. SpendTrend is a tool that tracks spending data and reports on the effect trends have on financial institutions. Dufrane’s remarks highlighted how sectors such as entertainment, dining, retailing, travel, and education have transformed since the pandemic began.

“What does the ‘new normal’ look like?” asked Dufrane. “One of the things that we discovered is that the staying power of the replacement or the substitution is really going to depend on how feasible it is. As you look through these various segments of the economy, there are a couple that stand out. Entertainment for one. It will be interesting as we get to the post-COVID side of this, whenever that is, what does that really look like? It seems like as a whole, people are now used to streaming movies at home, they have the convenience of their own popcorn, they can sit in their pajamas, they can stop the movie whenever they want. I personally think this could be a sector, where the trend of the decline in transactions at theaters has gone down since COVID, it’s possible, this one’s going to stick and maybe as a whole, the country is going to embrace being home.”

One of the highlighted sectors that has experienced significant year-over-year transaction growth is building materials and garden supply, thanks to stay-at-home dynamics fueling seasonal gardening and home improvements.

Steve Rosen, Fiserv Director of Strategic Initiatives, continued the presentation with a review of the Risk Office program offered through the partnership with Synergent, key metrics, industry risk and fraud trends, and trends and COVID-19 fraud events being observed. Rosen also provided risk tool updates on Contact Center, including advanced scoring models, portfolio optimization and dark web monitoring.

“The dark web is the portion of the web where the criminals operate,” explained Rosen. “They sell illegal goods, they also sell information, and they do this anonymously. This is where the card shops operate and they sell financial institutions’ card data and consumer information. What’s interesting is that payment cards are the most sold digital good on the underground forums, taking up 53% of dark web sales. In order to help mitigate this, we’ve actually introduced Cyber Fraud Warning, which uses a combination of machine learning techniques and mining the dark web in order to identify an alert on cards that have been discovered as compromised through our data analysis. It develops a likelihood that a fraud attempt is going to occur. The solution provides maximum coverage of accounts that have been compromised, then proactively alerts you so you can mitigate the fraud risk. … No one else is doing this in the market right now.”

At the end of the presentation, participants were able to engage in a Q&A session with the presenters.

Next Webinar: Fiserv Contact Center | October 29

In the next installment of this webinar series, Betty MacDonald, Fiserv’s Client Solutions Consultant, will cover the leading-edge tools and technology available through Fiserv’s Contact Center that enables credit unions to provide intuitive, responsive service at critical touch points that strengthens their brand and creates a consistently outstanding cardholder experience.

Service strategy must be crafted with intention, without simply relying on processes and procedures to create a positive member experience. With non-financial services companies like Amazon and Apple setting the bar high, we are all held to a standard that can, at times, be challenging to meet. The webinar will discuss the following key points:

  • Enhanced Consumer Experience
  • Strengthened Authentication
  • Expanded Performance Reporting
  • 24×7, After-Hours, or As Needed Availability

Learn More

The Fiserv & Synergent monthly webinars take place on the last Thursday of each month at 10:00 am ET and are offered free of charge to all Synergent Payments credit unions. To learn more, please contact Rebekah Higgins, Synergent Payments and Fraud Consultant, at rhiggins@synergentcorp.com.