Financial losses from check fraud reach into the billions each year and affect companies and financial institutions of all sizes. Additionally, the increasing volume of ACH payments means an increased potential for ACH Fraud. No longer is this white collar crime viewed as a “big bank” problem, nor is risk limited to large corporations. To curb this activity, financial institutions must make positive pay and ACH monitoring an integral part of business banking.
Exact/TMS is a transaction management system that encompasses check positive pay with payee match, ACH positive pay and full account reconciliation to provide financial institutions with a powerful fraud prevention tool that is focused on the transaction management needs of corporate clients.
The increase in volume of ACH transactions for corporate payments inherently increases the potential for ACH fraud. This reality requires that both financial institutions and corporate customers act more diligently in monitoring ACH activity, and Exact/TMS provides a simple, effective solution that greatly simplifies this task. Using Exact/TMS, ACH business rules are defined at the account level. In turn, every ACH transaction posted to the account is scrutinized to determine whether a transaction warrants further review.
The business rules that support ACH positive pay encompass ACH Authorization and ACH Transaction Monitoring. ACH Authorization is a list of ACH transactions that are pre-approved to post to an account. An ACH authorization rule can include the originating company, standard entry class, transaction type (debit/credit) and maximum dollar amount. ACH Transaction Monitoring is a list of general guidelines for monitoring ACH activity and alerting the client of items that exceed these guidelines. An ACH monitoring rule can also focus on the originating company, standard entry class, amount and debit/credit designation.
Before Centrix, we had under 200 customers on positive pay. Now, with Centrix Exact/TMS™, we’re on boarding five or six new users a week. At last count, we had more than 760 users.
Kristi Hansen, VP OperationsThe Exact/TMS Payee Match module enhances the check positive pay process by validating the payee on the check image against the payee name that the corporate client included in their issued check file. This process adds another layer of protection against unauthorized disbursements and fraudulent checks, beyond validating common data such as check number and check amount.
Payee match is enabled at the account level, which allows a financial institution to provide an enhanced level of check fraud protection to only those clients that elect to participate. As such, the client can be service charged accordingly for this service.
The Exact/TMS Payee Match module will interrogate the image of each posted check to extract the payee. The payee from the check image is then compared to the payee that was submitted in the issued check file, with each result scored to identify items that warrant further review (payee match exceptions). The system includes flexible payee match parameters that can be customized for each client to accommodate differences in check stock and font size, both of which can affect the payee match score. The check amount can also be a consideration in payee match processing as large dollar items may require a higher degree of payee match accuracy than low dollar items.
As ACH gains momentum as a payment channel, it stands to reason that corporate customers will require more sophisticated services related to ACH (EDI) and FI’s will look to automate. To help institutions respond, Centrix offers the Exact ACH Reporting System (Exact/ARS).
With features ranging from CCD+ delivery to EDI translation to ACH returns reporting, the system provides automated transaction reporting with email notification to clients and secures delivery of the reports/files. From an operations standpoint, this all happens automatically and unattended.
Exact/ARS is an extension of the Centrix Exact/TMS check positive pay and ACH fraud detection system. Both in-house and hosted implementations are supported.
Generates an email alert to notify the client that an account had ACH activity and the report or file is available for download via the secure web portal.
Automatically delivers the statement or file as an encrypted email attachment.
Exact/ARS incorporates EDI translation rules that the financial institution can optionally define to customize the description that appears on the EDI statement for a client. For example, a payment to a municipality (client) from an originator might include “AGO” in the EDI data, but the client may want a more clear description such as “Attorney General Office”.
Exact/ARS provides financial institutions with simple and efficient tool to review and process incoming ACH returns. Each day, the returns processing screen is populated with “today’s” incoming returns along with the charge back account defined for each originator. Back office personnel can review all returns or only returns that need a charge back account defined. Ultimately, a transaction file is created to post on the core processing system.
Automatically create a posting file to debit/credit the client for incoming ACH returns and eliminate manual data entry of these items
Exact/TMS is a transaction management system that encompasses check positive pay, ACH positive pay and extensive account reconciliation to provide financial institutions with a powerful fraud prevention tool that is focused on the transaction management needs of corporate clients.
Exact/TMS provides corporate clients with numerous ways of managing their transaction activity and reconciling accounts. Because no single method of account reconcilement is suitable for every corporate client, Exact/TMS includes a variety of account reconcilement options that the financial institution can make available to clients. Everything from a full on-line reconcilement statement to a downloadable reconcilement file gives Exact/TMS the flexibility to meet the needs of corporate clients of all sizes.
For clients that do business at multiple locations/branches, deposit reconciliation proves a valuable tool. This feature provides the client with a detailed listing of all deposit activity for the reconcilement period, grouped by location.