Financial institutions face unique challenges protecting their business customers against fraud loss. According to the most recent Deposit Account Fraud Survey by ABA, check fraud losses amounted to $1.3 billion, 47 percent of fraud loss against bank deposit accounts. While larger corporate customers may have the infrastructure to adapt internally, the small business market segment remains vulnerable without the assistance of their financial institution.

To help protect themselves against these fraud threats, banks and credit unions need a comprehensive set of Treasury Management solutions with fraud detection and prevention capabilities for commercial checks and electronic payments.

Expanding the capabilities of traditional positive pay software and bridging the gap between electronic and check payments for increased fraud protection allows for increased automation, on-demand image presentations, alteration detection, and assistance with reconciliation and reporting.

Some features of a Treasury Management fraud prevention solution that are important for financial institutions to consider include:

• Traditional Positive Pay: To enable check fraud protection by positively matching and validating dollar amounts and serial numbers against information from issued-check files.
  
• Payee Positive Pay: Fraudsters often alter the payee name on a known, good check to defraud organizations. Pending the verification of the dollar amount, check number, and other details, the fraud solution can automatically scan, read, and match the payee name printed on the face of the check against the payee information in the issued-check file.
  
• Reverse Positive Pay: Provides banks and credit unions the ability to present all paid items to the corporate customer for self-service review.
  
• ACH Positive Pay: Customers can create ACH debit blocks and debit filters, which the solution can use to evaluate ACH transactions.
  
• Secure Barcode: Provides the next generation of ‘fileless’ or ‘issueless’ positive pay, reducing the number of exceptions needing review and increasing document security at the point of presentment.
  
• Remote Official Check Printing: Businesses such as title companies or law firms use official checks to fund loan closings. With Remote Official Check Printing abilities, companies are able to print secure cashier’s checks and other official checks directly from users’ desktops. 
  
• Teller Validation: Allows tellers to verify the authenticity of a check at the time of presentment―either through a web interface or from the teller-captured image of the check.
  
• Account Reconciliation: Provides a comprehensive tool that enables corporate customers to reconcile accounts and create reports for paid items, outstanding items, and detailed summaries spanning specific periods.

For more information, download the “Protecting Business Customers from Fraud” interview with David Engebos, President and COO of ARGO.