Reduce your risk and exposure to check fraud with Positive Pay.

If your business accepts a high volume of checks, it is crucial to put payment fraud protections in place. According to the 2024 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey, 80 percent of respondents reported that their organizations were victims of attempted or actual payments fraud activity in 2023, and 65 percent of respondents reported that checks continue to be the payment method most vulnerable to fraud.

Lately, available antifraud measures have grown, as well. One advantage to the antifraud measures provided by Amegy Bank is their ability to be integrated into the existing accounts you already hold. Positive Pay compares checks presented for payment against your check issue information. Discrepancies are reported to you as exceptions for review, along with a decision to pay or return the item(s). It's an effective tool for small businesses and a convenient and efficient way to fight back.

Minimize losses and wasted time with fraud-fighting controls

Because checks are extremely vulnerable to fraud, you’ll want to defend against altered, counterfeit and fraudulent checks. You can help protect your business by establishing control over what items pay against your account.

If your check falls into the wrong hands, the fraudster could alter the payee and amount in an attempt to cash the check for themselves, or they may copy your account and routing numbers to produce counterfeit checks they can then write for themselves.

That’s why you want the bank to have all the information on the checks you write. If a check is presented for payment that doesn’t match the information the bank has, then the bank will be more likely to notice something is wrong. For example, let’s say the information you submitted for check #1234 has the payee as ABC Corp., in the amount of $250, but when check #1234 is presented to the bank for payment, it has a payee of a false company for $1,000. Our Positive Pay service lets you know if a check is altered to help in these types of fraud scenarios.

Two ways to battle banking fraud

1. Check Positive Pay with Payee Match verifies payee names and detects alterations to the Payee Name in addition to account number, amount and check number.

2. Automated Clearing House (ACH) Positive Pay prevents unauthorized ACH transactions from posting to your account. Future ACH items can be preauthorized to post automatically. It can also be customized to limit permissions and user account access. Our Mobile Positive Pay solution allows you to review and authorize payments on your mobile device to battle ACH fraud.

The fraud protection features of Positive Pay

Positive Pay can help protect against the efforts of fraudsters and save valuable time required to unravel the fraud paper trail.

Use improved controls provided by Positive Pay to help stop unauthorized transactions from clearing your account, including protection against payee alteration and counterfeit checks. Positive Pay gives tellers access to the most current check information available when cashing items to help them identify information that seems off.

Positive Pay features you can use in your own back office to help fight fraud

1. Includes a check-issued file upload and ACH filter for authorized transactions, accepting most file formats.
2. Provides layered user permissions and the ability to limit user account access.
3. Enables account reconciliation and easy reporting that can be imported to payable systems.
4. Allows you to retain ownership of users and permissions within your company.

Positive Pay can also save you money by limiting potential losses and legal fees by returning unauthorized items quickly, while also managing payment risk from fraudulent and electronic ACH items.

Get more information to start your fraud fight

To learn more about how Amegy Bank Treasury Management can help your business in the fight against fraud, fill out the form below, and a knowledgeable banker will be in touch.