Tougher action urged to counter identity theft, pretext calling

Banking regulators are pushing institutions harder to help protect their customers and customer information against identity theft and pretext calls. Policies and procedures should be in place to prevent unauthorized or fraudulently induced disclosures of customer financial information, the four agencies

The guidance supplements the congressionally mandated guidelines, issued by the agencies in February, for safeguarding the confidentiality of customer information (see Directors & Trustees Digest, February 2001).

Identity theft affects more than an estimated 500,000 persons annually. Most of this activity involves the theft of personal information to establish credit, charge items or borrow money in the victim's name. Pretext callers typically use deviously acquired bits of personal information to impersonate an account holder in order to gain access to the customer's account information.