While the financial services industry conducts business in a high-visibility, highly regulated environment, it remains a venue for many types of fraud. Most transactions and communications in the modern financial world are conducted electronically, but there are numerous printed documents within this world that may be falsified for benefit, including bonds, cashier’s checks, letters of credit, account statements, insurance applications and claim forms, and supporting documents like birth, death and marriage certificates. Perhaps most at risk are the often-unprotected financial documents that contain highly sensitive personal information, opening doors to the exploding problem of identity theft.
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Areas of Concern
Identity Theft
Customers face grave risks, and businesses significant liabilities, when sensitive identity information is held or transmitted in a wide variety of documents. Stopping identity theft is a multi-layered challenge because it relies on institutions and the government to provide the direction and the initiatives; but in the end, it’s consumers that can do a great deal to protect themselves and take big ideas into widespread practice. The financial services industry still relies on the transmission of data via paper, so adopting techniques that can hide vital identity information may be key to protecting the consumer.
Financial Instruments
Financial instruments, like bonds, cashier checks and money orders, can hold high value but are also highly transactional and sometimes face far too little scrutiny when it comes time to verify their authenticity. Specialty inks and papers, along with seals and holograms, are used to stop counterfeiting and fraud, but they have not completely stamped out all possibilities for the criminally inclined. Because these documents are highly unregulated, stopping fraudulent documents may require methods that can not only provide strong verification, but also easy visual authentication by anyone handling the document.
Insurance Documents
Processes in the insurance business are often highly paper-based, including applications, medical documentation, claims, official policies and supporting documents. These documents are often vulnerable both to fraudulent alteration, and to criminal misuse of the sensitive personal identity information that can be gleaned from them. In an industry where controlling risk is paramount, insurance companies need to develop methods to help protect the insured – and mitigate risk for their own corporate well-being.
Outlook
While various steps have been taken to protect financial documents, these measures are often complex, costly to implement and difficult to validate. For financial transaction and communications documents, sensitive information contained may be vulnerable to unauthorized viewing as well. Financial services businesses need a way to put the security and validation of printed documents in their own hands and control, and to make authentication simple across all levels – from the institution to the consumer.
AuthentiGuard On-Demand Can Help
AuthentiGuard-On-Demand is a sophisticated print security technology that combines the benefits of copy and tamper protection with the ability to conceal sensitive data within printed documents. Utilizing standard desktop and commercial printers, the solution provides for the dynamic delivery of comprehensive protection to all types of financial documents.