On May 5, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman delivered remarks on the growing risks of consumer fraud, framing fraud as a threat not only to individual households but to the integrity of the broader financial system and noting that nearly every fraud incident touches a bank account or involves a bank-related payment. Bowman outlined how advances in technology have enabled increasingly sophisticated scams that exploit vulnerabilities in payment systems and authentication processes, citing the Fed’s 2025 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking that found that one in five American adults experienced fraud in 2024. Her remarks highlighted that, in 2024, non-credit card fraud losses reached $84 billion, with only a quarter recovered. Bowman stressed that the impacts of fraud cross all demographic lines but noted that elderly consumers are particularly vulnerable. She also pointed to FSOC’s 2025 annual report (covered by InfoBytes here), which flagged consumer and cyber-enabled fraud as a growing financial stability concern.

Bowman noted that fraud losses represent one of the largest expenses for community banks, and that, despite “unprecedented investments” by banks in security and consumer education, fraud instances continue to increase as criminals exploit new vulnerabilities and technologies. In describing its regulatory response, Bowman emphasized the Fed’s commitment to a coordinated public-private strategy for combating payments fraud. She added that the Fed had reviewed over 250 comments received in response to a June 2025 request for information jointly issued with the FDIC and the OCC (covered by InfoBytes here), which she said are now informing the agencies’ approach. In her remarks, Bowman highlighted the Fed’s ongoing work as a payment system operator to strengthen fraud detection and prevention tools across its platforms, including efforts to standardize fraud classification language industrywide. She announced that the Fed, FCC and Treasury would be convening a public-private roundtable focused on “actionable” fraud prevention solutions, data-sharing practices, and cross-sector coordination. Bowman also stated that the Fed is evaluating enhanced guidance and resources for banks and called for robust bank defenses, improved victim recovery efforts, and ongoing regulatory evaluation to keep pace with evolving threats to consumers’ financial security.