--- title: Money 20/20 Las Vegas: Fraud Governance, Scams, and What to Do Before You Buy Another Tool source_page: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/money-2020-las-vegas canonical: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/money-2020-las-vegas format: text/markdown date: 2026-11-04T01:01:00.000Z description: Live from Money 2020 Las Vegas. Discussing governance, loss reporting, digital banking scams, and what to do before buying another fraud tool… --- **Quick links:** [Human page](https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/money-2020-las-vegas) · [Home](https://www.sardine.ai) · [Customers](https://www.sardine.ai/customers) · [Blog](https://www.sardine.ai/blog) · [Demo](https://www.sardine.ai/demo) --- # Money 20/20 Las Vegas: Fraud Governance, Scams, and What to Do Before You Buy Another Tool **Published:** 2026-11-04T01:01:00.000Z Live from Money 2020 Las Vegas. Discussing governance, loss reporting, digital banking scams, and what to do before buying another fraud tool… What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward! This episode comes to you live from Money 2020 Las Vegas, where I sat down with four people whose work I admire. Angela Diaz from TD, Jared Tennison from GBank, Jeni Branter from Royal Credit Union, and Aaron Frye from Lucid Point Consulting. Together they cover bank risk oversight, quantitative fraud analytics, credit union payments and digital banking, and fraud risk consulting. I also brought along our new fraud benchmark report for credit unions and community banks, and I used its findings to shape my questions. We talk about who owns fraud, why loss numbers rarely match from one team to the next, how scams reach members in digital banking, and why many teams shop for a new tool before they understand the one they already have. If you have been wondering what good fraud governance looks like in practice, this conversation is for you. Let’s get into it. What you’ll hear in this episode: How Angela Diaz carried lessons from a startup into large financial institution work, and what makes cross functional fraud collaboration work or fail What good fraud policy ownership looks like after the policy is written, including feedback from the people who have to apply it Why Jared Tennison says fraud teams can give three different answers about losses, and why first party fraud is the hardest to pin down How the hidden cost of fraud friction, including customers who never finish an application, rarely shows up in loss reporting Which scams Jeni Branter sees reaching members in digital banking, including romance scams and bank impersonation calls Why Jeni asks business members to meet security requirements in their contracts How intentional friction, step up checks, and limits based on the member’s risk can protect members without slowing everyone down What Angela says changes when AI agents start to transact, and why she believes risk avoidance is not risk management How Aaron Frye explains the second line of defense, fraud risk appetite, and why fraud ownership keeps moving from department to department Practical steps before buying a tool, including building requirements, inventorying what your current tools cover, and asking about fourth party risk You should listen to this episode if you: Lead or support a fraud program at a credit union or community bank and want practical ideas for governance Are trying to explain why your loss numbers differ between teams or channels Are preparing to replace a fraud vendor and want to know what to do first Work at a smaller institution and want to build strong fraud governance with limited resources Are thinking about how AI agents will change accountability for transactions ### Episode notes Cross functional collaboration and policy ownership Angela has spent 15 years focused on fraud, and I was thrilled to see her in the Trust 25 booklet. She told me she cares about the humans behind fraud, and not only the losses and metrics. At a startup, she owned everything from investigations to chargebacks, which gave her a view of the whole loop. In a large institution, she says that upstream and downstream view is what makes you effective in one area. Cross functional collaboration works when each team understands what fraud looks like in its own space. It breaks when too many stakeholders slow decisions, and her answer is strong change governance with fewer voices at the table. On policy, her team works alongside process owners to show how it applies to their work. She compares writing policy to giving directions to your house. Your success depends on how clear they are. Policy only works when the people who live it can interpret it. False positives and AI agents Our benchmark found that 94.4% of leaders track false positives and 69.4% report them regularly. Teams that report formally were 90% satisfied with their technology, compared with 71.4% for the rest. Angela sees false positives mostly as feedback for the fraud team, a way to tighten rules, alerts, and onboarding. Complaints and loss dollars are what travel upward. I also asked what changes for fraud teams when AI agents transact on a customer’s behalf. She told me we need standards for accountability. How do you identify an authorized agent, and who is accountable for what it does? Speaking for herself and not any bank, she believes we should be forward thinking. Risk avoidance is not risk management. Her advice for smaller institutions is to build risk and controls into the process as you design it, with a good inventory and process map. Loss numbers and the cost of friction Jared leads quantitative risk and fraud at GBank, and he says many people look at fraud qualitatively when many quantitative signals exist, like velocity of spend and login velocity. When someone asks about last year’s fraud losses, he says there are three answers. There is first party, third party, and unknown. First party is the hardest because it can look like a normal delinquent portfolio. Our benchmark found that 91.3% of leaders were confident in their loss data, yet only 45.8% had channel level numbers that reconciled within 20% of the total. Jared was not surprised and pointed to scam losses as the likely gap, since scams have become more advanced with AI. He also wants more people to measure the hidden cost of fraud friction. At the application stage, real customers get turned away, and that lost revenue never shows up on a financial statement. If you can narrow that number, you are doing your job well. Scams in digital banking Jeni became the Senior Vice President of Payments and Digital Experiences at Royal Credit Union in April, and the role is brand new. She told me she is writing the future, and I loved that. Her view is that payments and digital have to be partners, because digital is where you can step in before a member is harmed. Recovery is much worse than prevention. The scams she sees most are romance scams and impersonation calls or texts from someone claiming to be the credit union. I shared a story from our monthly community call about a member who withdrew $20,000 and left it in a bag in a parked car after a caller said a teller was under investigation. Jeni said victims are often in tears and embarrassed, and that helping them recover is far harder than a moment of discomfort up front. Contracts, education, and intentional friction Our benchmark found that 50.6% of respondents named account takeover a top threat. Jeni says you need analytics after the fact, and you need to look at propensity up front and know your business members well. Account takeover can sink a business. She recommends contracts that require business members to keep security in place, and then holding them to it. Scams were named the most pressing threat by 67.7% of respondents. When extra funding is available, 60.4% choose technology first, and member education is a priority for very few. Jeni believes that unless technology is invisible, you cannot do it without education. The investment may be people and time, and not only dollars. She also promotes intentional friction. Invisible validation does the work in the background, and when signals do not match, you add a step up. I shared a story about a CEO who asked why a $15,000 member to member transfer did not trigger a question. Jeni’s team uses a risk model to set limits that fit each relationship, which keeps them logical, repeatable, and testable. Her advice for this year is to be intentional about how money moves, because technology does not catch everything. Fraud ownership and the second line Aaron founded Lucid Point Consulting to help organizations with fraud risk management and to support companies that sell anti-fraud tools. His idea is to fight fraud on a foundation of the unknown. Fix what you have before you move forward. When nobody owns fraud in the first line, he says it turns into finger pointing between operations, AML, and cyber. Fraud risk also moves from leader to leader every three to five years at some organizations. He calls it the most complicated risk to manage because there is no blueprint for how to structure it. Our benchmark found that 52.4% of institutions use a hybrid model and 42.7% have a fully centralized program, and structure alone does not tell you whether it works. A strong second line manages policies, performs gap assessments, evaluates vendors, and keeps a regular cadence with the first line. In his experience, the stronger the second line, the less chaos in the first. Vendor selection before you buy Our benchmark found that 84% of teams were satisfied with their technology, yet 62.3% cited false positives and 45% cited core integration. I asked Aaron why teams shop for a replacement before mapping what the old tools do. His answer is that they skip requirements. Build a non-negotiable list before you talk to vendors, and stick to it. Then inventory what each tool can see, detect, and score to find the open gaps. He believes more companies need a fraud vendor management function, since general vendor teams do not know fraud. Read agreements for accountability, and ask about fourth party risk. He shared a case where a fourth party vendor error cost a lending campaign its applicants, and the vendor only refunded the inquiries. In a one week audit, he would ask whether a fraud governance function exists, whether it sits in the fraud team, and whether a documented fraud risk appetite tells the right story. If you do not have one, consider this your sign to write it. ### Key takeaways Cross functional collaboration only counts when it turns into strategy and execution. False positives are most useful as feedback for the fraud team that tunes rules, alerts, and onboarding. Fraud teams can report first party, third party, and unknown losses separately to show where the numbers differ. The hidden cost of fraud friction includes customers who never finish an application, and that loss rarely appears in reports. Impersonation scams and romance scams are carried out in digital banking, and victims often feel embarrassed. Contracts that require business members to keep security in place, along with education that accompanies new technology, help limit account takeover and scam losses. Intentional friction, step up checks, and limits based on member risk protect members without slowing everyone down. Risk avoidance is not risk management, and that applies to AI agents that transact for consumers. A strong second line and clear fraud ownership reduce chaos in the first line. ### Final takeaway Fraud programs rarely lack ideas for new technology. What they often lack is a clear answer to who owns the risk, who challenges it, what current tools cover, and what is being measured. Angela, Jared, Jeni, and Aaron each approached that question from a different seat, and they landed in the same place. Do the groundwork first, bring people in early, and be intentional about where you add friction and where you remove it. Your next tool will work better when it fits into a program you understand. Episode resources & links Want more fraud fighting in your inbox? Subscribe to The Monday Fraud Fix. My weekly newsletter with the trends, stories, and takeaways I’m paying attention to. Subscribe here. Connect with Angela Diaz | LinkedIn Senior Risk Manager, External Fraud Risk Oversight at TD Connect with Jared Tennison | LinkedIn AVP Quantitative Risk and Fraud Team Lead at GBank Connect with Jeni Branter | LinkedIn SVP Payments & Digital Services at Royal Credit Union Connect with Aaron Frye | LinkedIn Founder & CEO at Lucid Point Consulting Connect with Hailey Windham, CFCS | LinkedIn Host of the Fraud Forward Podcast Banking Community Lead at Sardine Certified Financial Crimes Specialist (CFCS) 2023 Credit Union Rockstar, CU Magazine Continuous Improvement Award, SAFE Federal Credit Union, 2023 Top 20 Professionals Under 40, The Sumter Item, 2022