How Community Banks Prevented Over $4 Million in Check Fraud in 2025

Check fraud isn’t new—but the scale, speed, and coordination behind today’s attempts continue to challenge community banks. Mail theft, altered checks, and organized fraud rings have turned what was once a manageable issue into a persistent operational and financial risk.

What has changed is how much fraud is being stopped before it ever posts.

In calendar year 2025, community banks using FraudSentry prevented $4,034,402 in confirmed check fraud losses—fraud that never reached customer accounts and never required downstream cleanup.

Fraud prevention, measured across a full year

Across 32 community banks, FraudSentry delivered consistent, measurable results throughout 2025:

• $331,387 in fraud prevented per month, on average
• $124,270 in fraud prevented per bank*
• $867,754 prevented at a single institution

These results reflect fraud activity across community banks ranging from under $250 million to several billion dollars in assets. While transaction volumes and exposure differed, the common outcome was early detection of fraudulent checks before posting—regardless of size.

What stands out in the data

A few themes emerge when looking at fraud prevention across institutions of varying asset sizes and transaction profiles.

Fraud does not scale neatly with asset size.
Mid-sized community banks often experience fraud attempts comparable to much larger institutions, reinforcing that exposure is not purely a function of balance sheet size.

Single events can change the economics.
In multiple cases, one intercepted check exceeded the annual cost of the solution—turning fraud prevention from a cost center into immediate avoided loss.

As one banker shared:

“One stopped check paid for the system. Everything after that was avoided loss.”

Early detection reduces operational drag.
Stopping fraud before posting avoids the time-consuming work that typically follows: investigations, reversals, customer communication, and documentation.

Why stopping fraud before posting matters

Most fraud tools focus on detection after funds have moved, when options are limited and remediation has already begun. FraudSentry is designed to work upstream—identifying suspicious checks early, when banks still have control over the transaction.

That distinction has a direct impact on:

• Loss prevention, by stopping fraudulent items before settlement
• Operational efficiency, by reducing investigation and recovery work
• Customer trust, by preventing account impact altogether

When banks can identify suspicious activity early, the impact is immediate and tangible.

In 2025, that approach helped community banks prevent more than $4 million in losses, measured across a full year and across institutions of different sizes.

Going into 2026, one thing is clear: stopping fraud is far easier—and far less disruptive—when it happens before the money moves.

A consistent outcome in an unpredictable threat environment

Fraud patterns change constantly. Timing, volume, and methods are rarely predictable. What is predictable is the value of identifying suspicious activity early.

In 2025, that approach resulted in more than $4 million in avoided losses for community banks—validated over a full calendar year and across institutions of different sizes.

As banks look ahead to 2026, the focus remains simple: prevent fraud before it posts, and the rest becomes manageable.

* Average reflects calendar-year 2025 results across all participating institutions; some banks were active on the platform for a partial year.