March is Fraud Prevention Month, a time to recognize both how far financial crime has evolved and how urgent it is to equip the institutions on the front lines with the tools to fight it.
The Federal Trade Commission launched Fraud Prevention Month in 2006 to raise awareness about scams and strengthen efforts to protect Americans from financial harm. How times have changed!
Back then, fraudsters used landline telephones, AOL email, and dial-up internet to fool and rob consumers with phony sweepstakes prizes, weight-loss products, credit repair, and telemarketing pitches.
Today, artificial intelligence fuels deepfakes and voice cloning, phishing, fake websites, synthetic identity fraud, romance and investment scams, malware, and other automated, large-scale attacks.
Credit unions have been in this fight for many years. They began a century ago when employees pooled their own savings. They offered higher savings rates and lower loan rates and fees than banks. And in that way, among others, they earned the trust of the communities they serve.
Credit unions invest heavily in protecting consumers from fraud. They use AI to identify abnormal patterns in real time. Layered security measures, including multi-factor authentication and biometric verification, confirm users’ identity. They train frontline staff to spot red flags, like unusual, large, or anxious transactions.
That frontline role was underscored recently before Congress. Testifying on behalf of America’s Credit Unions, Park Community Credit Union General Counsel Kate McKune told lawmakers that financial institutions like credit unions are seeing fraud escalate rapidly – even as their prevention efforts grow more sophisticated. Her credit union alone processed nearly 6,500 fraud alerts in 2025, while still absorbing more than $300,000 annually in fraud-related losses.
Recent national survey data makes clear why this imbalance matters. Despite constant buzz in Washington and on Wall Street about digital tokens and payment “revolutions,” nearly seven in ten Americans say they know nothing at all about stablecoins. Only about one in four expresses interest in using them for payments. And when consumers learn that these products lack deposit insurance and fraud liability protections, 61 percent say they would be less likely to use them. Among those initially interested, nearly three-quarters walk away once they understand the risk.
That is not resistance to innovation. It is a demand for accountability and a sign that new payment methods must be adaptable to different consumer interests. Americans are open to modern tools, but not at the expense of safety. They expect their money to be protected, their deposits to be insured, and someone to stand behind them when fraud occurs. When new entrants in financial services operate with lighter regulatory burdens while credit unions face mounting compliance costs, the result is not greater consumer protection. It is regulatory asymmetry that shifts risk toward families.
What consumers need is a modernized liability framework that creates incentives for every link in the fraud chain to prevent scams, rather than one that simply assigns the bill to the last institution standing. Credit unions are already investing in real-time fraud detection, frontline staff training, and transaction monitoring. A smarter regulatory approach would recognize those investments by providing safe harbors for institutions that take affirmative steps to warn and protect consumers before a fraudulent transfer goes through. It would also hold social media platforms, telecom companies, and payment apps accountable for the roles they play in enabling fraud at scale.
A new national data security and privacy standard would better protect consumers and small businesses from negligent actors.
In a survey last fall, 94 percent of Americans favored expanding access to credit unions. A major reason was trust. Americans understand the credit union difference.
Trust is not abstract. Nearly three-quarters of Americans view credit unions favorably, significantly higher than perceptions of large national banks. Consumers consistently associate credit unions with lower-cost loans, reliable service, and institutions that care about their financial well-being. In an era when one in three Americans has experienced credit card fraud and many have seen unauthorized withdrawals, that trust reflects lived experience.
Americans are not asking for more financial hype. They are asking for safe, local banking that combines modern fraud detection with time-tested consumer protections. Fraud Prevention Month should serve as a reminder that innovation must strengthen safeguards, not weaken them—and that the institutions best equipped to protect consumers must be empowered, not constrained.
Policymakers who care about consumer protection should follow their lead.
Scott Simpson is President & CEO of America’s Credit Unions.
