Fighting Mortgage Fraud - Leigh Williams, BITS President

Payment cards and ACH fraud have dominated the headlines, but mortgage fraud remains a very real threat to banking institutions and consumers alike. In an exclusive interview, Leigh Williams, BITS President at the Financial Services Roundtable, discusses: Mortgage fraud trends of top concern; Risks to banking institutions and consumers; Immediate steps to take to reduce mortgage fraud. Williams was appointed President of BITS in April 2007. Previously, Leigh was a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, in the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. While at Harvard, his research focused on public and private sector collaboration in the governance of privacy and security. Prior to joining the Kennedy School, Leigh worked for many years at Fidelity Investments in various risk management, security and privacy roles, including Chief Risk Officer and Chief Privacy Officer. His most recent position at Fidelity was Senior Vice President, Public Policy. While with Fidelity Investments, Leigh served the industry in a variety of leadership roles, including many within BITS and the rest of The Financial Services Roundtable. A division of The Financial Services Roundtable, BITS is a not-for-profit industry consortium whose members are 100 of the largest financial institutions in the United States. Created in 1996 by the CEOs of these institutions, BITS fosters the growth and development of electronic financial services and e-commerce for the benefit of financial institutions and their customers.