Fraud Prevention Manager

At Community Financial System, Inc. (CFSI), we are dedicated to providing our customers with friendly, personalized, high-quality financial services and products. Our retail division, Community Bank, N.A., operates more than 200 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Western Massachusetts. Beyond retail banking, we also offer commercial banking, wealth management, investment management, insurance and risk management, and benefit plan administration.

Just as our employees are committed to helping our customers manage their finances, we're committed to our employees. After all, they make it happen for our customers every day.

To ensure our people can enjoy long and successful careers here at CFSI, we offer competitive compensation, great benefits, and professional development and advancement opportunities. As an equal-opportunity workplace and affirmative-action employer, we celebrate and support a diverse workplace for the benefit of all: our employees, customers and communities.

The Manager, Fraud Prevention is responsible for leading the Bank's front-line fraud prevention function, including daily fraud alert management, transaction monitoring activities, customer fraud response, and prevention staff oversight. This role ensures fraud prevention operations are executed effectively, consistently, and in alignment with the Bank's risk appetite, service standards, and operational expectations.

The Manager, Fraud Prevention is accountable for the performance of the fraud prevention team, the quality and timeliness of alert and case handling, and the coordination of fraud prevention activities the bank. This position serves as a key escalation point for complex fraud prevention matters and helps drive procedural improvements, team development, and operational consistency.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Lead, supervise, and develop fraud prevention staff and team leads responsible for daily transaction monitoring and fraud alert handling.
• Oversee day-to-day fraud prevention operations, including queue management, workflow prioritization, staff coverage, and service level performance.
• Ensure fraud alerts, suspicious transactions, customer contacts, and prevention-related cases are reviewed and resolved accurately and within established timeframes.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex or high-risk fraud prevention events, including unusual account activity, customer-impacting fraud situations, and operational exceptions.
• Balance fraud mitigation efforts with customer experience considerations to support sound decision-making and minimize unnecessary customer disruption.
• Partner with Deposit Operations, Contact Center, Branch teams, Risk, Compliance, and other internal stakeholders to support fraud controls and issue resolution.
• Monitor fraud volumes, trends, workflow bottlenecks, and loss patterns and recommend improvements to staffing, processes, procedures, or controls.
• Support the implementation and ongoing refinement of fraud prevention procedures, job aids, workflows, and documentation standards.
• Perform quality oversight of team activity to ensure consistency, proper documentation, and compliance with internal policy and regulatory expectations.
• Manage team performance through coaching, feedback, training, and performance discussions, while fostering accountability and continuous improvement.
• Assist with onboarding and development of new employees and support creation of a scalable, well-trained prevention team structure.
• Contribute to fraud reporting, management updates, trend analysis, and department metrics as needed.
• Support change management efforts related to fraud tools, monitoring strategies, system enhancements, and procedural updates.
• Maintain awareness of evolving fraud typologies, scam trends, and customer-impacting threats affecting deposit and payment channels.
• Maintain proficient knowledge of, and demonstrate ongoing compliance with all laws and regulations applicable to this position, ensure ongoing adherence to policies, procedures, and internal controls, and meet all training requirements in a timely manner.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education/Training:

• 8-10 years of experience in fraud, Deposit Operations, branch operations, risk management, or financial services.
• Minimum of 2 years of people leadership, supervisory, or team lead experience.
• Experience overseeing operational workflows, staff performance, and case or alert management in a banking or fraud environment.
• Prior experience handling customer-impacting fraud issues, transaction monitoring, or deposit account fraud prevention preferred.
• All applicants must be 18 years of age or older.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior management experience in a fraud prevention, fraud operations, Deposit Operations, or financial crimes environment.
• Experience with fraud monitoring systems, case management tools, and operational reporting.
• Familiarity with consumer banking products, deposit operations processes, and fraud prevention controls.

Skills:

• Strong knowledge of deposit account fraud, consumer fraud schemes, check fraud, debit card fraud, scams, and transaction risk indicators.
• Working understanding of telecommunication best practices, including coaching and developing best practices for customer remediation considerations.
• Strong leadership and staff management skills, including coaching, accountability, and workflow coordination.
• Ability to evaluate fraud risk while balancing operational practicality and customer experience.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to work effectively across frontline and operational teams.
• Ability to identify trends, assess workflow challenges, and implement practical process improvements.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Sound judgment, attention to detail, and ability to make timely decisions in a risk-sensitive environment.

Compensation: Commensurate with experience plus potential for annual merit increase. In addition to your competitive salary, you will be rewarded benefits including: 11 paid holidays, paid vacation, Medical, Vision & Dental insurance, 401K with generous match, Pension, Tuition Reimbursement, Banking discounts and the list goes on!

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee may be required to stand, walk or sit. Use hands and fingers, handle or feel, reach with hands or arms, and speak and hear. The employee may occasionally be required to lift and or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, and the ability to focus.

The Company is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

The Company will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with a disability. If you have a physical or mental impairment and would like to request an accommodation with respect to the application process, please contact the Human Resources Department.