Despite major investments in digital security, fraud is accelerating. It’s grown 71% in two years, and credit unions are feeling the pressure. The weakness is no longer the website or the app. It’s the contact center, the most human and, therefore, most easily manipulated part of the member experience.
Fraudsters can imitate a member’s information. They can imitate a member’s number. Increasingly, they can imitate a member’s voice. What they cannot imitate convincingly is a full spectrum of signals evaluated together. This moment requires a new way of viewing identity: not as a static fact checked through simple questions, but as a signal that blends voice biometrics, device integrity, and contextual knowledge.
TTEC Digital teamed up with VoxEQ, IDgo, and TransUnion to discuss how credit unions can build a defense layer across voice, device verification, and morethrough SmartApps Cloud. Here are our top takeaways.
Why Fraud is Accelerating in Credit Unions
Fraud is rising and contact centers are taking the brunt. As channels like mobile and web have become harder to compromise, fraudsters have shifted to the path of least resistance: agents who are trained to help and trained to trust.
As Michael Shrall, Product Manager for TTEC Digital and host of the conversation explained, “People are using AI powered voice clones or they’re spoofing their caller ID. Legacy approaches are really no longer effective as being the sole means to verify or authenticate your members.”
Credit union agents want to serve members quickly, which creates moments where attackers harvest small pieces of information. When fraudsters test multiple agents, stitch together information from breaches, and imitate urgency, the contact center becomes a perfect attack surface.
The Strongest Strategy Uses Several Signals For Protection
Fraudsters excel at exploiting predictable systems. The only way to close their opening is to ensure no single signal decides trust on its own. The solution is a multi-layered defense strategy – also known as “defense in depth.” SmartApps Cloud delivers this by combining three identity factors, each revealing a different dimension of truth.
1. Something you know
These are the traditional elements that agents have historically relied on, now strengthened by real-time account context. Instead of using these signals to decide identity, SmartApps Cloud uses them to validate identity once other layers have revealed risk or confidence.
2. Something you are
This is where VoxEQ brings in voice biometrics to protect all callers through:
Caller screening, detects impostors by analyzing the voice bio-signals on all calls
Caller authentication, verifies identity for caller with enrolled voiceprint
As VoxEQ CEO Jack Caven described, “It provides a comprehensive fraud screening technique and it’s only available from VoxEQ.”
With zero storage of customer PII or voiceprints, VoxEQ also ensures stronger compliance, lower breach exposure, and peace of mind for your security.
“We don’t store voice prints, we don’t store any call audio… if somebody should breach our system, none of your member information would be available to steal because it’s not there.”
The result is a passive, real-time screening layer that covers every caller, including first-time callers, in addition to traditional voiceprint protection.
3. Something you have
Device integrity and device-based verification close the loop.
TransUnion examines whether the incoming call is tied to a real, physical device or whether it has been spoofed or manipulated. Their scoring reveals whether an agent should streamline, pause, or escalate. Chris O’Leary summarized it simply: they can detect if the device “has been spoofed, hacked, or manipulated.”
ID Go adds secure confirmation directly from the member’s verified device when higher risk actions are requested. This gives agents certainty without relying on guesswork or extended questioning.
Together, these three layers prevent fraud from slipping through any single crack.
How SmartApps Cloud Protects Members Without Straining Service
Security does not have to come at the cost of experience. A well-designed multi-layer system provides clarity rather than friction. SmartApps Cloud unifies all the signals into one view, which means:
• High trust calls move smoothly
• Moderate trust calls use limited, targeted checks
• High risk calls trigger deeper steps automatically
In Closing: Fraud is Evolving, So Defenses Must Evolve with It
We closed the conversation with one simple truth: fraud never stops adapting.
“There is no silver bullet. There is no one solution that you can deploy that you can ensure that you’ll have no fraud.” —Michael Shrall
Credit unions cannot rely on any single method or single layer. The path forward is a multilayered defense that reads the caller through signals that reflect real identity, not just memorized information.
SmartApps Cloud is the place where these layers come together, creating a safer experience for members and a clearer workflow for agents.
As Shrall when multiple layers are combined, “they build on each other and create a better experience for both the employee and the member.”
This is the future of fraud defense. But more intelligence, drawn from more signals, delivered exactly when the agent needs it most.
See how these layers work together inside SmartApps Cloud by watching the full discussion below.