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Banks report ten-fold surge in digital scams, BioCatch says

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U.S. and Canadian banks reported a ten-fold surge in digital scams this year as criminals flock to techniques that rely on duping customers into sending them money, according to cybersecurity firm BioCatch.

The sharp rise in reported scams from the first three quarters of 2023 comes as banks have put in place more controls to prevent account takeovers and other forms of fraud, according to BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Tom Peacock.

“Fraudsters have realized that the humans are the weakest link,” Peacock said. “It’s easier to convince a human to do something through manipulation than it is to try and circumvent a technological control.”

BioCatch, a Tel Aviv-based firm that uses behavioral data from mobile apps and websites to help banks distinguish between real users and criminals, provided its findings to CNBC ahead of a report that culled information from 170 U.S. and Canadian institutions. The company said American Express, Barclays and HSBC are among its clients.

Banks are under pressure to kick criminals off their platforms and compensate more victims as regulators and lawmakers focus on the harm done by digital scams. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may punish them for their roles in the giant Zelle payments network. Customers of the three banks reported a combined $166 million in Zelle transactions were fraudulent in 2023.

The rise of “social engineering scams,” in which criminals use persuasive tactics to convince victims to send them money, began around five years ago, but “really started to take off” in the past 18 months or so, Peacock said.

Zelle is the preferred way criminals extract their funds because it is faster than other remittance options, Peacock said.

“When social engineering scams really started to take off in the U.S., it kind of coincided with Zelle, because the two went together,” he said. “Platforms like Zelle are enabling fraudsters to be a lot quicker and more successful.”

Zelle owner Early Warning Services has said that while transaction volumes rose in 2023, reports of scams and fraud fell by almost 50%, and that only a tiny fraction of payment volumes are disputed as fraud.

The increase cited by BioCatch is also driven by greater identification of activity that the banks previously didn’t flag as scams because of mounting regulatory pressure, Peacock added. BioCatch declined to provide a specific number for reported scams, citing client confidentiality.

In another sign of the cat-and-mouse dynamic of cybercrime, BioCatch clients reported 59% fewer fraudulent account openings. Instead, criminals have focused on taking over existing bank accounts, leading to a three-fold increase in fraud through that channel, the firm said.

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Finance

Powell says the Fed doesn’t need to be ‘in a hurry’ to reduce interest rates

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Jerome Powell: Fed doesn’t need to be ‘in a hurry’ to reduce interest rates

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that strong U.S. economic growth will allow policymakers to take their time in deciding how far and how fast to lower interest rates.

“The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates,” Powell said in remarks for a speech to business leaders in Dallas. “The strength we are currently seeing in the economy gives us the ability to approach our decisions carefully.”

(Watch Powell’s remarkets live here.)

In an upbeat assessment of current conditions, the central bank leader called domestic growth “by far the best of any major economy in the world.”

Specifically, he said the labor market is holding up well despite disappointing job growth in October largely that he attributed to storm damage in the Southeast and labor strikes. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 12,000 for the period.

Powell noted that the unemployment rate has been rising but has flattened out in recent months and remains low by historical standards.

On the question of inflation, he cited progress that has been “broad based,” noting that Fed officials expect it to continue to drift back towards the central bank’s 2% goal. Inflation data this week, though, showed a slight uptick in both consumer and producer prices, with 12-month rates pulling further away from the Fed mandate.

Still, Powell said the two indexes are indicating inflation by the Fed’s preferred measure at 2.3% in October, or 2.8% excluding food and energy.

“Inflation is running much closer to our 2 percent longer-run goal, but it is not there yet. We are committed to finishing the job,” said Powell, who noted that getting there could be “on a sometimes-bumpy path.”

The remarks come a week after the Federal Open Market Committee lowered the central bank’s benchmark borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point, pushing it down into a range between 4.5%-4.75%. That followed a half-point cut in September.

Powell has called the moves a recalibration of monetary policy that no longer needs to be focused primarily on stomping out inflation and now has a balanced aim at sustaining the labor market as well. Markets largely expect the Fed to continue with another quarter-point cut in December and then a few more in 2025.

However, Powell was noncommittal when it came to providing his own forecast. The Fed is seeking to guide its key rate down to a neutral setting that neither boosts nor inhibits growth, but is not sure what the end point will be.

“We are confident that with an appropriate recalibration of our policy stance, strength in the economy and the labor market can be maintained, with inflation moving sustainably down to 2 percent,” he said. “We are moving policy over time to a more neutral setting. But the path for getting there is not preset.”

The Fed also has been allowing proceeds from its bond holdings to roll off its mammoth balance sheet each month. There have been no indications of when that process might end.

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Watch Fed Chair Powell speak live to business leaders in the Dallas area

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[The stream is slated to start at 3 p.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks Thursday to business leaders in the Dallas-Forth Worth area on monetary policy. Powell is delivering a speech followed by a question and answer session.

The appearance comes one week after policymakers again voted to lower their key interest rate by a quarter percentage point, or 25 basis points. That followed a half-point cut in September and left the federal funds rate in a range between 4.5%-4.75%.

Economic readings this week, though, showed that inflation has proven sticky, with consumer price inflation at 2.6% and prices at the wholesale level at 2.4%. The measures are considerably higher for core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs.

Markets expect the Fed to cut again in December then likely skip the January meeting as officials assess the impact of the policy easing moves so far.

Read more:
Annual inflation rate hit 2.6% in October, meeting expectations

Powell and the Fed won’t be able to avoid talking about Trump forever
Here’s why inflation may look like it’s easing but is still a huge problem

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: TPR, CPRI, DIS

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