By Mzukisi Rusi, VP Product Development: Identity & Authentication
Many financial institutions (FIs) focus their fraud prevention efforts on their banking and payment channels. But there’s another critical piece of the puzzle that they could be missing — their call center. With call centers experiencing an increase of approximately 33% in high-risk calls in 2024, it seems as though fraudsters are taking full advantage of security gaps in outdated authentication methods still in use by so many institutions.
In this blog, I explain how a unified authentication approach can help FIs secure all their channels, including their call center and, ultimately, improve call center efficiency, reduce costs and build customer trust.
In this blog, I explain how a unified authentication approach can help FIs secure all their channels, including their call center and, ultimately, improve call center efficiency, reduce costs and build customer trust.
The dangers of outdated, disparate authentication
It’s not uncommon for FIs to use disparate authentication methods across their customer channels to prevent fraud. Mobile banking may use one solution, online banking, another, and the call center, yet another. As fraud pops up on one channel, FIs find a solution provider to help. Then, as fraud breaches another channel, they find a method to patch that channel from another provider. Unfortunately, this siloed approach, which I’ll get into later, introduces security risks that fraudsters can exploit.
Beyond the risks associated with siloed data, digital channels are more likely to be the recipient of technology updates and leave call center security behind in the dust. Many call centers still rely on static knowledge-based authentication (KBA) to verify a customer’s identity, like ‘What were your last three transactions?’ or other equally frustrating questions for customers. However, these outdated tools are highly susceptible to fraud attacks, like phishing.
Why? Because KBA is often based on a customer’s personal data like the name of their first pet or mother’s maiden name — data that people give away too freely on the internet through social media, online quizzes like ‘Who’s your doppelganger?’, or the latest viral trend like AI-created action figures. Combined with online scams like fake job offers or those too-good-to-be-true deals that pop up in email, for example, fraudsters continually gather consumers’ personal information to help them more easily breach a bank’s security.
While some call centers use an additional step-up authentication measure — a one-time passcode (OTP), say — fraudsters can easily trick customers into sharing that too.
Beyond the risks associated with siloed data, digital channels are more likely to be the recipient of technology updates and leave call center security behind in the dust. Many call centers still rely on static knowledge-based authentication (KBA) to verify a customer’s identity, like ‘What were your last three transactions?’ or other equally frustrating questions for customers. However, these outdated tools are highly susceptible to fraud attacks, like phishing.
Why? Because KBA is often based on a customer’s personal data like the name of their first pet or mother’s maiden name — data that people give away too freely on the internet through social media, online quizzes like ‘Who’s your doppelganger?’, or the latest viral trend like AI-created action figures. Combined with online scams like fake job offers or those too-good-to-be-true deals that pop up in email, for example, fraudsters continually gather consumers’ personal information to help them more easily breach a bank’s security.
While some call centers use an additional step-up authentication measure — a one-time passcode (OTP), say — fraudsters can easily trick customers into sharing that too.
Improve call center efficiency, reduce costs, and strengthen fraud prevention
An authentication solution that only gathers context about one channel prevents FIs from knowing what threats or attacks are happening in others, like a call center. In other words, that lack of shared intelligence creates weak points, which fraudsters can easily exploit.
A trust anchor (a trusted source or starting point, like a customer’s mobile banking app) can provide a reliable way to verify a customer’s identity and unify fraud prevention measures. That trust anchor not only protects the core banking channels, but can also be used to protect the call center.
A trust anchor (a trusted source or starting point, like a customer’s mobile banking app) can provide a reliable way to verify a customer’s identity and unify fraud prevention measures. That trust anchor not only protects the core banking channels, but can also be used to protect the call center.
Optimizing call center efficiency and costs
A trust anchor can reduce call center costs by quickly verifying a customer’s identity and reducing call holding times. If you spend the first minute of a conversation with a customer trying to verify them through KBA questions, that customer, and those waiting in the call queue, become frustrated. Another big concern here is that as the call duration and waiting period get longer, the service costs increase.
One of our clients successfully deployed a call center authentication solution from Entersekt because they identified it as a cost-saving opportunity; an opportunity to streamline customer experience with a modern authentication solution. Entersekt helped them reduce their call holding time by enabling the FI to authenticate their customers quickly and securely.
Overall, at Entersekt we’ve helped many of our customers — banks and credit unions in the U.S. in this case — modernize their call center authentication and, on average, achieve:
One of our clients successfully deployed a call center authentication solution from Entersekt because they identified it as a cost-saving opportunity; an opportunity to streamline customer experience with a modern authentication solution. Entersekt helped them reduce their call holding time by enabling the FI to authenticate their customers quickly and securely.
Overall, at Entersekt we’ve helped many of our customers — banks and credit unions in the U.S. in this case — modernize their call center authentication and, on average, achieve:
- A 57% reduction in call center call volumes
- Savings of $615,500 (4,821 hours) through self-serve password resets using biometric authentication
- A reduction in ATO-related costs by 52% through ATO and other scam protection
Reducing banking and payment fraud
A solution that covers all banking and payment channels enables an FI to share context and risk intelligence across those channels for stronger fraud and scam prevention. It’s about not treating any channel as a silo and considering all the different entry points for each customer profile. Which is critical as fraud attacks become more sophisticated, and fraudsters work together to manipulate customers into sharing KBA and OTP data, for instance.
However, with Entersekt, the customer gets an out-of-band prompt saying, “Are you trying to reset your password via our call center?” or “Are you speaking to an agent to reset your password?”. That context alerts the customer to any fraud attempt and empowers them to put a stop to it — with just one click of a button.
However, with Entersekt, the customer gets an out-of-band prompt saying, “Are you trying to reset your password via our call center?” or “Are you speaking to an agent to reset your password?”. That context alerts the customer to any fraud attempt and empowers them to put a stop to it — with just one click of a button.
“Entersekt cut our account takeover in half.” - Doug Almeida, Chartway Credit Union
Building customer trust with holistic fraud prevention
A unified approach ensures that the customer experience is consistent across all channels. Which builds trust, because the customer knows what to expect, and you’re involving them in preventing fraud.
Entersekt helps FIs streamline their call center tasks, reducing call volumes and call length for:
Entersekt helps FIs streamline their call center tasks, reducing call volumes and call length for:
- ACH/Wire transfers: Replacing manual calls to authenticate ACH/Wire transfers
- Password resets: Replacing KBA questions to authenticate a caller with self-serve password resets
- Call center authentication: Eliminating call center interaction altogether by digitizing password resets
Discover how Entersekt solutions help banks and credit unions streamline operations, prevent ATO fraud, and deliver a consistent customer experience across all channels — including the call center.
