I am looking to establish an incentive plan for our employees who are instrumental in preventing fraud or forgeries. They are being counseled for not stopping fraud, not the focus I want, instead I want the focus to be rewarding the good behavior of spotting or "Hunting" these down.
Something such as a predetermined scale based on the money saved or other any other appropriate standard. Any suggestions

For front-line employees: In past experiences, this sort of reward was handled at the branch by the managers. Teller deters a fraud attempt, Branch Manager gives them a gift card. If the fraud was for a large dollar amount the employee would be identified by the security department with a larger gift card and mention in the corporate newsletter. My only suggestion is to keep it simple; if you spend your time tracking and rewarding deterence on the front line, you won't have time to do the real job - catching the other bad guys that don't try to pass bad checks on the teller line.

Sometimes a note of recognition from the CEO, is all an employee needs to feel good about having helped with the prevention of a fraud.

Loss prevented <$500 exposure = $50

Loss prevented >$500 exposure = $100

C'feit item(s) - loss prevented = $150

We designed covers to go over regular Hershey Bars that said "Star Bars" & listed the "ingredients" for a "Star Employee".

The employee then gets the chocolate bar & a certificate signed by myself & the VP Compliance Officer. The certificate is placed in their personnel file for their annual review.

Everyone seems to enjoy the chocolate :o)

Stay away from the $ amount and focus on the number of incidents. Example: Man presents a check for $275,000 that is a counterfeit. By policy, a front-line teller will never make a decision on this check. Man, presents a check for $1,990. Most likely, the same teller is relied upon to use his/her good judgment in taking this check.

If we reward by $ amount, we reward a lot for catching something easy like an unusually large check, while the $1,990 check seems more normal and is more difficult to catch, but we reward a smaller amount for that.

We reward a point for each incident, regardless of $ amount. We've had one for almost $500,000 and we've had several in the $400 range. If you catch it and save a loss, you earn a point. If you cash it and cause a loss, you LOSE a point (they must also be held somewhat accountable for mistakes...can't solely be positive). Set a point total at which a teller earns a bonus (we set ours at 10, initially, but nobody was getting there, so we changed it to 6). We pay a $100 bonus for every 6 points a teller has.

One branch manager has 21 points (working on his 4th bonus) while others have just a few points. This also rewards longevity, rather than simply paying a bonus each and every time a teller catches something.

Also, we are a retail branch bank. Scammers go from branch to branch. To encourage inter-branch communication, I also award a point if someone warns of a possible situation and that warning is partly responsible for stopping a scammer from hitting the next branch.

I do spend a LOT of time in monitoring this program, but I also spend a LOT of time training our tellers to prevent fraud. The result, after 14 months, is a lower fraud-loss total and fewer cases for me to try to prosecute.

Basically, my tagline is my motto when it comes to doing my job.