Kansas City, Mo ? Computers have provided criminals with new tools to rip off banks. Now, banks are using computers to try to catch the criminals.

Banks throughout the Midwest can join FinCrime, a computer database that allows financial institutions and law enforcement to share information about crimes and provide warnings.

Bankers associations in 10 states, including Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin, are taking part, and others are considering it. Most of the associations offer FinCrime free to their member institutions. More than 200 banks have joined, but some states, such as Missouri, just started recruiting.

Bill Ratliff, executive vice president of the Missouri Bankers Assn., hopes the database will help cut down on fraud losses by allowing banks and law enforcement officials to gain quick access to information about crimes.

“Fraud losses are getting pretty frightening,” said Ratliff, adding that his organization will be talking to bankers throughout the state about FinCrime in the next month.

Currently, the average fraud scheme lasts 18 months before it is detected, according to the Federal Trade Commission and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

With FinCrime, once a financial crime, such as check fraud, is committed, bankers and law enforcement personnel can enter information about the crime and the suspect into the database. FinCrime looks for matching information and notifies participants on the network when a match surfaces.

“Obviously the more participants we have, the more data we can gather in this electronic database, the more valuable it’s going to be for participants,” said John Sorensen, president and chief executive of the Iowa Bankers Assn. “We’re trying to expand it widely and keep the cost of participation at either nothing or very small costs.”

Similar databases exist throughout the country, but this one is free to members of participating banking associations.

“One of the unique things about our network is that it’s going to be owned by state banking associations and that it will be provided really as a service as members of these state banking associations,” Sorensen said.

Steve Looney, vice president of information technology at the Iowa Bankers Assn., said it’s not uncommon for criminals to use computers to create counterfeit checks, then run off a batch. As the checks make their way to different banks, police may not realize that they’re all part of the same crime.

“Instead of being a simple, one $500 crime, it may be the same person using checks in 20 different locations,” Looney said.

Mike Norris, vice president of marketing and services for the Kansas Bankers Assn., said that typically when his organization received information about a financial crime, it would pass it along in biweekly mailings. FinCrime allows that information to get out much faster.

“It’s basically almost instantaneous,” Norris said.

Sorensen said Iowa began using the system six years ago but decided to expand it in recent months.

“We really see this growing, and we are getting a very positive response,” he said.