Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Executive News: Politics, fraud remain hot topics for bankers

We are less than a month away from Election Day and it’s getting exciting – there are so many races at the federal level that will determine control of D.C., and that doesn’t even include the presidential election.

One would th

Adrian Beverage, OBA President and CEOink my entire article one month out would be nothing but election information. Sorry to disappoint you, but I feel we’ve covered everything we can until the polls close on Nov. 5.
I want to leave the political and election talk with this: Oklahoma ranks dead last in the country in voter turnout among registered voters. In Oklahoma, 54.99% of registered voters get to the polls while Minnesota has the highest percentage of voter turnout at 79.96%.

This is embarrassing and we as a state have to do better. We could argue for days as to why we are so low, but today isn’t that day. Elections have consequences, whether its local, state or federal. On Wednesday, Nov. 6 there are going to be a lot of discussions about what happened or didn’t happen the previous night. I love these little discussions, but if you tell me you didn’t vote because “my vote doesn’t matter,” I have no interest in discussing anything from election night with you.

GET OUT AND VOTE!

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Let’s talk about something even more painful than politics: fraud! Fraud is running rampant right now, whether its check fraud, wire fraud, identity theft or the other countless types of fraud, it’s happening and not going away.

While there are numerous tools available to combat these frauds, I wanted to spend a little time on one specific tool with the potential to slow down this epidemic. CrimeDEX is an online network that uses the leverage of thousands of fraud, loss prevention and law enforcement professionals collaborating to prevent fraud, shoplifting, organized retail crime and other financial crimes.
CrimeDEX allows professionals to share, search and leverage relevant information on criminals between businesses and law enforcement.

CrimeDEX members can:
Solve cases faster with access to information on over 15,000 crimes and suspects nationwide.
Broadcast information on wanted criminals to groups large or small.
Link criminals to more than one open case using powerful search and watchlist capabilities.
Collaborate more effectively between the private and public sectors.
Share video and images with other CrimeDex members to maximize the utility of our platform.

It’s key features include:
CrimeDex members can leverage the power of social networks by creating private portals for a particular organization, metro area, industry or other area of interest
Users can create member groups, share relevant information, distribute group email alerts, and interact via their own portal. We have the OK MAFIA group for sharing just in Oklahoma.
Incident-based reporting for multiple crime types makes CrimeDex a fit for banks, retailers, property managers and more.

While there is no magic bullet to prevent fraud, knowledge and people are still the best tools available. If you would like more information on CrimeDEX, reach out to the OBA’s Sharon Lewis at sharon@oba.com.

Here’s another great example of folks working together to combat fraud. In late September, the 2024 SW BSA & Financial Crimes forum was held in Tulsa. The event was held over two days and there were more than 250 attendees. They heard about new crime trends affecting community banks and communities, networked with banking and law enforcement peers, and worked together to build a strong fraud-fighting state.

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As you can see, there is a lot going on. In the November paper, we’ll summarize all the election results and what it means going forward for our industry.
Please remember to vote!