Georgia Bank Turns Privacy into a Marketing Plus
Steve Cocheo · ABA banking journal · 2003
Like many bank employees, worker x at West Georgia National Bank had authorized access to systems that enabled him to look up a great deal of account information regarding the before him. There was only one catch: He was looking up the information about a who wasn't in front of him. In fact, that hadn't even been in the bank at all that day. The particulars--why the employee was digging into records--couldn't be revealed by Leighton Alston, president and CEO of WGNB Corp. and CEO of West Georgia National Bank, during a recent interview. But the fact that the employee was accessing information that he had no need for to meet the customer's or the bank's requirements was picked up by software that the bank had installed, and, when the intrusion was detected, the employee not only became an ex-employee, but the subject of a criminal referral filed by the bank earlier this year. In 2002, one of the bank's drive-up tellers didn't like the look of the signature a customer was using to cash a check. The teller summoned police, but the fraudster, smelling trouble, began to take off. In the resulting chase the crook wound up smashing into police vehicles, but was apprehended. It turned out he had burgled the checks from a customer's home mailbox and had hoped to score some quick cash. The bank's systems helped the teller detect the attempted fraud. As these stories indicate, West Georgia National, a $384.5 million community bank based in Carrollton, takes privacy very seriously. This is not only out of interest, but self interest. It started with a lost To many banks of all sizes, the privacy issue, in all its forms, represents a necessary but frequently onerous compliance responsibility. But to West Georgia National, privacy and identity theft concerns represent an opportunity to visibly demonstrate its concern for its customers as well as potential customers. The bank had already been taking a number of steps when an elderly woman came into one of its offices with a problem. She was convinced she was the victim of an identity theft scam of some kind, but couldn't make her own bank's staff take the time to hear her out and help her fix things. She was lost, and wondered if someone at West Georgia National could point her in the right direction? Alston says the staff helped her through the case as much as they could, at various points going to internet sites relating to ID theft. That got the veteran banker's wheels turning, and spawned a collection of efforts that were combined with programs already underway. The bank eventually branded the whole group of efforts under the trademarked name of MyID. The program incorporates elements of photo and signature identification technologies; privacy policies that go beyond federal requirements; physical security efforts for data; and several different efforts to help prevent or remedy situations of identity fraud. Say cheese! The bank's efforts started several years ago with software developed inhouse to enable tellers to verify signatures right at their stations. Stored signatures came up on their workscreens. Subsequently, the bank purchased Harland Financial Solutions' EZ Teller system, which includes the EZId module. The latter captures and retrieves identification documents. The bank includes signature cards in this, and, for the last two years, has been including photos taken of new account customers in the bank's seven branches with digital cameras. …