Synthetic identity fraud is on the rise across financial services, ecommerce, public sector, health and utilities markets. The long-term impact of synthetic identity remains to be seen and will hinge largely upon forthcoming efforts across the identity ecosystem made up of service providers, institutions and agencies, data aggregators and consumers themselves.
Making measurement more challenging is the fact that much of the assumed and confirmed losses are associated with credit risk and charge offs, and lack of common and consistent definitions and confirmation criteria. Here are some estimates on the scope of the problem:
- Losses due to synthetic identity fraud are projected to reach more than $800 million in 2017.*
- Average loss per account is more than $10,000.*
- U.S. synthetic credit card fraud is estimated to reach $1.257 billion in 2020.*
As with most fraud, there is no miracle cure. But there are best practices, and topping that list is addressing both front- and back-end controls within your organization.
Synthetic identity fraud webinar>
*Aite Research Group
