#fdic bank

[joinhighcircle]

Detecting and Preventing Business Fraud

Fraud poses a significant threat to businesses of all sizes, undermining trust, financial stability, and reputation. In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, the risk of fraud is ever-present, making it imperative for organizations to adopt robust strategies for detection and prevention. A few proactive steps for preventing fraudulent activities and safeguarding assets include:

Strengthening Internal Controls Strengthening internal controls is crucial. Ensure no single employee controls all aspects of critical transactions. Require management approval for significant transactions and regularly reconcile bank statements, accounts receivable, and payable ledgers to promptly identify discrepancies.

According to the ACFE, organizations across various industries lose an estimated $4.7 trillion annually to occupational fraud globally, amounting to approximately 5% of their revenue. The average loss per case is $1,783,000, while the median loss is $145,000.

Educating and Training EmployeesEmployees are the first line of defense against fraud. Educating them about common fraud schemes and training them to recognize and report suspicious activities is essential. Promoting a culture of honesty and integrity reduces the risk of fraud within the organization. According to a 2020 ACFE report, businesses with fraud awareness training receive 56% of their fraud tips from trained employees, compared to 39% from companies without training.

Enhancing Cybersecurity Measures Invest in real-time fraud detection systems that monitor transactions and flag unusual activities. Use data analytics to identify patterns that may indicate fraudulent behavior. Protect digital assets with robust cybersecurity measures like firewalls, encryption, and multi-factor authentication.

Conducting Regular AuditsRegular audits are essential for detecting and preventing fraud. Internal audits ensure compliance with controls and identify financial irregularities. External auditors provide unbiased reviews and offer assurance to stakeholders. Unannounced audits catch unnoticed fraudulent activities, enhancing fraud detection.

Staying Informed About Fraud TrendsStay informed about the latest fraud trends and prevention techniques. Keep up with industry news on emerging fraud schemes, join professional organizations, and provide ongoing training for employees to keep them updated on new threats.

Fraud prevention is an ongoing process that demands vigilance, education, and the right tools. Remaining proactive and committed fortifies your business against fraud, protecting assets and reputation while fostering long-term success and stability.

In today's digital landscape, a bank must prioritize stringent cybersecurity measures to safeguard customers' sensitive information. High Circle excels in this regard, conducting regular infrastructure audits, implementing robust fraud monitoring systems, employing industry-standard data encryption protocols, enforcing multi-factor authentication, and providing dedicated white-glove customer support. 

High Circle’s robust security measures include: Infrastructure Audits

Regular audits ensure our systems meet the highest standards.

Fraud Monitoring

Continuous monitoring designed to detect fraud.

Industry Standard Data Encryption

Your data is encrypted to Industry Standards i.e. ISO 27001.

Multi-factor Authentication

An extra layer of security for your account.

Secure Login & Device Verification

Designed so that you can access your account securely.

White Glove / Concierge Customer Support

Get personalized customer support M-F, 8-5 CT. Leave message after hours and weekends and holidays.

Experience peace of mind with High Circle’s platform. High Circle ensures that your personal and financial information is safeguarded with the utmost care.High Circle Inc. is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured depository institution. All deposit products and services are provided by FirstBank, a Tennessee Corporation, Member FDIC. Funds in your deposit account are insured up to $250,000. The FDIC's deposit insurance coverage only protects against the failure of the FDIC-insured depository institution.

[zvaigzdelasas]

It's wild how with 1 million dollars you could literally gain an average US income doing nothing but purely collecting interest on a 4% savings account. Then there's people with like. Thousands or tens of thousands of those.

[isawthismeme]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alex Lang at The Independent:

Donald Trump’s transition team has reportedly looked at ways to shrink or eliminate banking oversight - a move that could have dramatic impacts on everyday Americans and protecting their money. In interviews with candidates to oversee the banking sector, Trump advisers and DOGE - the advisory Department of Government Efficiency - officials have asked if the president-elect can abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump’s team has also asked if the FDIC could be absorbed into the Treasury Department. Any move to eliminate the FDIC would require Congressional approval. But, if it were to happen, it would be a massive shakeup in the industry. The FDIC was created during the Great Depression. It is designed to help bulk up faith in the nation’s banking system. Most people know the agency as it insures deposits in banks up to $250,000.

So if there was a run on a bank or one would collapse, people with up to $250,000 wouldn’t lose their money because it’s insured by the federal government. If the FDIC went away, everyday people could lose that insurance or guarantees that their money will still be available in the event of a bank run or collapse. The WSJ report notes that while banks hope Trump will ease regulations, the FDIC insurance is considered “near sacred.” A move to eliminate that deposit insurance could cause panic among customers - and cause people to demand their money so it’s no longer at risk. Last year, several banks failed and it caused customers to shift their money to big banks and away from smaller groups. Sources told the WSJ that Trump’s team, which includes DOGE advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have also asked nominees about combining or restructuring bank regulators, including the FDIC and Federal Reserve.

The crooked Trump Misadministration is floating a dangerous 2nd Great Depression-causing idea by potentially closing down FDIC. Such a move would put people's savings and checking accounts at risk.

[thashining]

"He’s also talking about gutting the NCUA along with the FDIC, and having both absorbed into the treasury. They want all deposit insurance essentially done away with."

"DOGE backs bitcoin so they are looking to destabilize banks and force consumers into using bitcoin which is where they get $$ "from"

[reading-writing-revolution]

Lots of bullshit from Trump that's perhaps worth hearing about. Better second-hand instead of listening to him.

"Yesterday, Trump gave his first press conference since the election. It was exactly what Trump’s public performances always are: attention-grabbing threats alongside lies and very little apparent understanding of actual issues. His mix of outrageous and threatening is central to his politics, though: it keeps him central to the media, even though, as Josh Marshall pointed out in Talking Points Memo on December 13, he often claims a right to do something he knows very little about and has no power to accomplish. The uncertainty he creates is key to his power, Marshall notes. It keeps everyone off balance and focused on him in anticipation of trouble to come."

[liveleaker]

the best part about being an adult is learning which federal agencies you can use to threaten businesses trying to fuck you over

[bitchesgetriches]

Hey bitches - I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but I've been wanting to open a HYSA. How can you tell if a place is legit? For example, Credit Karma has one, American Express, etc, and I'm like... these are legit companies, yes, but are they legit for a savings account? Or is that best left to a bank?

Darling child, this is NOT a stupid question. It's a brilliant question! Especially in these dangerously scammy times.

The simple answer is to make sure the financial institution is FDIC-insured. The FDIC provides deposit insurance to protect your money in the event of a bank failure. Your deposits are automatically insured to at least $250,000 at each bank or financial institution where it's housed.

We go into more detail on how to evaluate a bank right here, sweet pea:

How the Hell Does One Open a Bank Account? Asking for a Friend.

From HYSAs to CDs, Here's How to Level Up Your Financial Savings 

10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself 

If you found this helpful, consider joining our Patreon.

[forbidden-interlude]

Moved the bulk of my savings into a hysa and that is literally so scary. Not the hysa just transferring in general.

[joinhighcircle]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Gary Wilson

In the current crisis, the banks hold the government hostage. They demand anything and everything to "bail us  out, or we will take you down with us." As long as capitalism rules, the bankers are not lying when they say this. On March 12, the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation unveiled a plan to rescue uninsured depositors, Semafor reports. Only customers with deposits $250,000 and below are insured by the FDIC. But by invoking a “systemic risk exception,” they’ll now be able to cover larger accounts, which make up a much higher percentage of SVB’s deposits than most banks.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adam Clark Estes at Vox:

Some people collect coins or stamps. For a time, I collected debit cards. Not stolen ones! Each one of them had my name on them, right below the logo of the latest banking app I’d decided to try out: Venmo, Cash App, Chime, Varo, Current, Acorns. For the better part of a decade, I did all my banking through these apps, enjoying their slick user experience and lack of fees. The problem with every one of them, however, is that they’re not chartered banks. If the company behind the app went bankrupt, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) would not necessarily come to my rescue. This disaster scenario was a hypothetical worry when I eventually settled for Chase and its FDIC insurance. For millions of others, it became a reality earlier this year when a company called Synapse collapsed and froze them out of their accounts. Users of Yotta, a popular savings app with a built-in lottery, and other apps that relied on Synapse to help manage their accounts couldn’t access their money for months. Now, as hundreds of thousands of Synapse customers’ dollars remain in limbo, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are calling for banking reforms, and the FDIC is proposing changes to its rules.

Still, a growing number of people are embracing these financial technology, or fintech, services. More than a third of Gen Z and millennials used a fintech app or a digital bank as their primary checking account, according to a 2023 Cornerstone Advisors study. So some questions are worth asking: Is it a bad idea to use an app like Venmo as your main bank? Are digital banks like Chime trustworthy enough? The answer to both questions is yes. Venmo is not a bank, and using it as your primary checking account comes with some risks. Some fintech companies, like Chime, are just as big as traditional banks and offer some nice perks. Again, because they’re nontraditional, there are risks. “You’re not going to go back to a world where everybody works with a small bank and walks into a branch,” Shamir Karkal, co-founder of Simple, one of the first digital banks. “The future is just going to be more fintech, and I think we all just need to get better at it.”

Neobanks and money transmitters, briefly explained

The term fintech can refer to a lot of things, but when you’re talking about everyday services for everyday people, it typically refers to either neobanks or money transmitters. Chime is a neobank. Venmo is a money transmitter. They’re regulated in different ways, but because most of these companies issue debit cards, many people treat them like checking accounts. Fintech apps are not the same thing as FDIC-insured banks.

Neobanks are fintech companies that offer services like checking accounts in partnership with chartered banks, which are FDIC-insured. Neobanks sometimes enlist intermediaries known as banking-as-a-service, or BaaS, companies, which are not FDIC-insured. Still, you will often see the FDIC logo on neobank websites, just like you see it stuck to the glass doors of many brick-and-mortar banks. That logo instills trust, and thanks to their partnerships, neobanks can claim some FDIC protections. But because they do not have bank charters, these neobanks and BaaS companies are not directly FDIC-insured. Instead, neobank customers can be eligible for something called pass-through deposit insurance coverage.

[...] Money transmitters, also known as money services businesses, are even further removed from the perceived safety of the FDIC. Put bluntly, if you’re keeping all your money in a Venmo or Cash App account, you don’t qualify for FDIC insurance. Money transmitters are not neobanks or banks at all but rather completely different legal entities that are regulated by individual states as well as the Department of the Treasury. There are certain protections provided by these agencies, but FDIC insurance is not one of them. So when an app like Yotta or Chime says on its website that it’s FDIC insured, it’s not a lie, but it’s not necessarily true either. Venmo, to its credit, admits in the fine print of its homepage that its parent company PayPal “is not a bank” and “is not FDIC insured.” To confuse you even more, however, certain PayPal services that enlist a chartered bank partner, like a PayPal Mastercard or savings account, might qualify for FDIC insurance. Again, it depends.

[...] That doesn’t necessarily mean that all neobanks and fintech companies are untrustworthy. In some cases, the sheer size and track record of fintech companies can instill quite a bit of trust. Chime, the largest digital bank with roughly 22 million customers, scored a $25 billion valuation in its latest round of funding and is planning to go public next year. Venmo’s parent company, PayPal, is widely considered safe and trustworthy. And don’t expect Block, the $42 billion company that owns Cash App as well as its own chartered bank, to fail any time soon. The truth is, even if there is some false sense of security, fintech apps offer certain customers features that big banks can’t or won’t. One thing that’s made Chime and many other neobanks so popular, for instance, is that they don’t charge so many fees. That’s a huge boon to young people as well as people without bank accounts. If a fintech app is your only option, then you might not care so much about FDIC insurance.

“If you’re poor in America and you’re banking at Chase or Wells Fargo, you’re going to get overdraft fees, minimum balance fees,” Mikula explained. “So there is a real need that [fintech] companies fulfill as a result of your establishment banks essentially not wanting to bank poor people because it’s difficult to do profitably.” As many as 6 percent of Americans were living without a bank account in 2023, according to Federal Reserve data. That share grows to 23 percent for those making less than $23,000 a year. The unbanked population, which disproportionately comprises Black, Hispanic, and undocumented people, is at a greater risk of falling victim to predatory lending practices, including payday loans. Some fintech companies also offer short-term loans, though they’ve been criticized for being predatory as well.

If you have Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, or any fintech or digital banking app, be aware: don’t use them as your primary checking account.

[ilivewithintheshadows]

Daddy's gotta be honest kitten. I think my work is gonna be shut down by the FDIC by the end of the summer.

[chronomally]

I always love when people are like "You wouldn't rob a bank!" Beloved, your money is insured up to $250,000. You lose nothing

[misforgotten2]

US Post Office First Day Covers   1978 - 1984