Why Positive Pay
Understanding the reasons why its needed
Positive Pay: Why does a business need it?
By Lori Tucker, United Bank's Chief Experience Officer
Positive pay is a service provided by financial institutions to help their business customers fight check fraud. After the bank completes its business day processing, suspicious checks are queued up for the business customer to review for legitimacy and any alterations.
Fraudsters are constantly looking for weak points. They know that banks are processing thousands of checks every day, and that there is no reasonable way to review each and every one of them for alterations, forgeries or counterfeits with human eyes. Their goal is to slip the altered or counterfeit check into the normal process and grab the funds before anyone else detects the loss.
How Does Positive Pay Work?
Business customers enroll in the service with our Business Banking team. We'll train you and your team members on how to manage it within your online cash management profile.
Whenever you issue checks on your account, you provide us a list electronically that includes the check number, the payee, the dollar amount and date.
When the check is presented to the bank, our system reviews the details of the check against the check data you provided. We flag anything that does not match, and queue it up for your review the following business day. We withhold payment until you give us the thumbs up.
Does It Work?
Yes! United Bank customers have already stopped thousands in potential losses. We are dependent on the technology - and if you're hand writing your checks, you may get some false positives. Our team has put together some resources to help you maximize the success of your Positive Pay processes.
What else can you do to combat fraud?
Write fewer checks; use digital methods for making payments. But if you must issue a check, take precautions to protect it during transit. For example, deliver any outgoing mail with checks directly to a post office. Unfortunately, there are significant reports of postal thefts across our nation. Use online bill payment through your online banking. Or authorize your utility companies, insurance companies (those you trust and regularly send payments to) to debit your checking account directly. Federal regulations provide protection in the event that you discover an unauthorized debit from your account. Just notify us within 60 days.
If you are paying employees currently with a check, offer direct deposit instead. Our Online Cash Management service provides the tools to initiate your own ACH batches to pay your employees. And when their account is at United Bank, they'll get their funds a day early!
Get started now.
Connect with our Business Banking team to enroll in these services and start protecting your accounts today.