The Bank of Missouri helps protect your business against fraud

Thursday, May 2, 2024 ~ Updated 10:06 AM

You work hard for your money, but fraudsters are also working hard to take it. In fact, the 2023 Association of Financial Professionals (AFP®) Payments Fraud and Control Survey reports 65% of organizations were victims of payments fraud attacks/attempts in 2022. One of these schemes is check fraud, specifically check washing. Criminals attempt to redirect checks to their own accounts, increase amounts and send false ACH payment requests.

The Bank of Missouri has tools you can use to protect your business from these schemes. With fraud solutions designed for businesses of every size, you can layer a multi-pronged approach to keep your financial information and hard-earned money safe through Positive Pay Solutions and Online Security Features.

“The first step to avoid losses for any business is to reconcile accounts daily. It’s crucial in helping spot errors, fraud or other negative activity. We’re working hard to ensure we have the best financial security tools to protect our clients’ businesses,” said SVP of Treasury Solutions, Casey Crowell. “Our Positive Pay solutions are a cost-efficient way of reducing losses from check forgeries, alterations and unauthorized electronic transactions.”

Standard Check Positive Pay simplifies account reconciliation and reduces disbursement risk. With this feature, a business uploads a file that contains data from a batch of checks, including check numbers, issue dates and dollar amounts. When a check is presented for payment, the bank compares the details to the file data. If the data doesn’t match, the check is flagged for the business to review. They can choose to return or authorize payment.

“This provides our business clients with an opportunity to have the bank verify authenticity of check payments,” Crowell said.

Another layer of Positive Pay is ACH Positive Pay. This tool works to stop unauthorized electronic withdrawals from accounts. Questionable transaction attempts are flagged, and the business will have the opportunity to review them. For example, ACH Filters can help specify which ACH debit entries should be allowed to post. This can prevent unauthorized transactions and allow certain transactions to occur as expected. Another option is the ACH Block, which can be used to prevent all ACH debit entries from posting to an account, if needed.

Treasury Solutions at The Bank of Missouri also offers robust online security features, with features in place to keep information and money safe in business banking accounts, including:

Security alerts for new users

Multi-factor authentication and security tokens

Approval protocols and user limits

IP Restrict and Time Restrict

Fraud Prevention Education

“There’s so much work that goes into owning your own business, not every business owner can be a financial security expert, too,” Crowell said. “These features we make available to our business owners take a lot of worry out of running your own operation.”

Crowell said everyone, not just business owners, should be wary of check washing. To reduce fraud against personal accounts, reduce your own use of checks by using electronic payments such as ACH.

“Reducing the need to send checks through the mail is the best way to prevent check fraud for all of us,” she said.

The Bank of Missouri offers more fraud awareness information at bankofmissouri.com. To learn more about fraud solutions for your business, contact The Bank of Missouri Treasury Solutions team at (573) 768-7540 or online at bankofmissouri.com.