Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

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Check Fraud: A Guide to Avoiding Losses

Preventive Measures – General Internal Controls

Strong organizational controls can reduce the likelihood of check fraud. A sound organizational strategy should require the bank to:

• monitor, classify, and analyze losses and potential losses to identify trends.
• report findings from monitoring activities to the audit, risk-management, and security divisions and senior management.
• ensure communication among departments about check fraud concerns.
• assess operating procedures regularly and implement changes.
• target check fraud awareness training to specific check fraud schemes – how they occur, and how to prevent them.