The Total Cost of Fraud

U.S. banks incur heavy financial and indirect costs to fight fraud. The actual dollar figure is hard to pin down, but my firm, Oliver Wyman, estimates that the toll on banks currently totals $100 billion to $125 billion per year. This counts the direct cost of successful fraud attacks plus spending on technology and business processes to contain the crime. Given the deliberate confusion and obfuscation of some forms of fraud, the true figure could be even higher.

Meanwhile, U.S. banks…