ME&MEE

Guillaume Deybach is the President and CEO of Europ Assistance USA (EA). EA’s Identity Theft Resolution Services help financial institutions retain customers and reduce the burden on call centers by allowing current and existing customers to gain added protection and assistance around identity theft.

Ensuring that a person’s monetary losses in the event of identity theft are limited is a very good thing. According to a recent insurance industry study, typical identity theft losses can be in the thousands of dollars. Any protection mechanism that caps these losses at $50, for example, is laudable. This is the reason so many banks offer this kind of protection to their credit and debit card customers. But once the bleeding has stopped, damage to the victim’s good name and financial standing remain and must be corrected. Financial losses are the proverbial tip of the iceberg; restoring credit-worthiness is the lumbering behemoth just beneath the surface.

U.S. banks, leading issuers of credit and debit cards, have at least five reasons to address the identity theft issue:

First, banks are often the last line of defense between identity thieves and their victims. As such, they can be viewed as carrying a moral responsibility to protect consumers from ID theft. While there may be no legal or financial liability involved with this perception, there is a potential market liability.

Second, bank personnel will ultimately be involved in helping their credit and debit card customers recover from the ravages of identity theft. Employee time spent on these matters cannot be spent on other matters.

Third, another efficiency issue is tied to bank employees who themselves become victims of identity theft. Among working Americans, it is likely that as many as one in 10 persons have had their identities stolen. This includes bank employees, and a typical identity theft victim will spend as many as 600 hours over the better part of a year working to resolve issues related to a single case of identity theft.

Fourth, as institutions that hold confidential customer data in their file cabinets and databases, banks have a very real legal responsibility to protect these data. Should a bank employee be implicated in an identity theft case for having mishandled customer information, the bank may well be held liable.

In light of the competitive, operational, and legal concerns associated with identity theft, banks do well to stand against this crime in whatever ways are feasible. Banks are well equipped to protect themselves, their customers, and their owners from becoming legally entangled in identity theft.

That’s why banks and other issuers of credit and debit cards have begun offering enhanced forms of identity theft protection to their customers. ID Theft Resolution Services from Worldwide Assistance can assist banks in helping their customers, if victimized by ID theft, quickly and easily recover from by assigning a specially trained coordinator to work with them toward a complete resolution. The coordinator personally assists the victim by doing the necessary paperwork, making appropriate phone calls, and completing other restoration activities, such as credit report reviews, account cancellations, disputed items removal, and more. This frees the identity theft victim to worry less and focus on their existing responsibilities instead of the task of restoring his or her good name. This package of services can be offered by the card issuer to differentiate its credit or debit products from those of the competition.

The identity theft problem is real. Competitive pressures for banks increase regularly. By utilizing innovative products that help minimize the impacts of identity theft, banks can not only compete better for valuable customer relationships but also demonstrate their continuing leadership in the community.