Inevitably, the vast majority of financial institutions will experience payments fraud. Among the  2023 AFP® Payments Fraud and Control Survey of nearly 450 treasury practitioners, 65 percent of organizations fell victim to attempted or actual payments fraud last year. Banks and credit unions are long overdue in leveraging wire and ACH origination verification solutions to give back-office employees and commercial accounts what they want and need – to eliminate time-consuming, antiquated fraud prevention processes and replace them with actionable treasury management solutions that empower business users to both detect and respond to suspicious wire and ACH activity before funds are transferred.

Offering convenient, real-time wire and ACH origination verification solutions that empower commercial accounts with greater control over their security is a valuable opportunity to tap into a new, non-interest income revenue stream from commercial accounts and to help reduce losses from instances of Business Email Compromise and internal fraud.

In addition to opening up new avenues for generating non-interest income, here are a few other advantages:

Reducing Liability for Fraud Losses through Enhanced Security

By empowering business users to take action against unauthorized activity, rather than simply offering visibility over transactions, financial institutions provide commercial accounts with the necessary tools to protect themselves against suspicious activity. Coupling a modern commercial banking solution using multi-factor single sign-on capabilities coupled with fraud prevention tools using technologies, like out-of-band ACH origination verification and voice biometrics wire verification, shifts responsibility to the business for detecting and responding to fraudulent payments.

Ultimately, this heightens security as the financial institution’s decision to process the payment is based on the guidance of the commercial user. Without a system that involves the user, financial institutions bear the expensive responsibility of detecting and responding to suspicious activity on the behalf of the business, which also means the institution could be held liable for losses if fraud does occur.

Minimizing Operational Costs

After a suspicious transaction has occurred, today, financial institution employees may spend time manually communicating the fraudulent activity to commercial accounts, either through phone calls or recorded messages. These labor-intensive processes prove costly because they require additional back-office employees to manage the process. By giving business administrators the technology to identify parameters determining which transactions should be authorized, financial institutions can then spend time systematically monitoring for suspicious payment activity. This technology, combined with automated out-of-band alerting and wire and ACH origination verification, enables commercial accounts to take action against unauthorized activity and minimizes the time spent by full-time employees managing the manual transaction dispute and return process.

Improving the Commercial Banking Experience to Support Future Growth

Streamlining processes to make fraud prevention more scalable and collaborative leads to a better commercial banking experience that not only protects business accounts in the long run, but also supports stronger client retention efforts for the financial institution. Banks and credit unions offering a process for screening and decisioning transactions, which is transparent, convenient and promotes faster processing of the payment, will ultimately win out over their competitors.    

A commercial banking platform combined with the right anti-fraud treasury management solutions allow business users to quickly and easily dispute fraudulent activity from the comfort of their home or office – vastly improving the user experience. Balancing security with convenience is challenging, but with the right technology, it is possible to deliver a seamless experience without compromising on security. Financial institutions achieving this balance will be more successful in retaining commercial and business accounts and attracting new ones, which supports profitable growth.  

Compared to their financial institution’s risk management personnel, the business user almost always has better awareness of their own accounts, so banks and credit unions must take steps to leverage treasury management solutions allowing business users to participate in the fraud detection and approval process. By equipping commercial accounts with treasury management solutions that enable them to take action against unauthorized activity, financial institutions can shift the control over to the commercial account, ensuring heightened security and reduced operational costs, all while delivering an outstanding experience.

Learn more about Alkami’s treasury management solutions here.