According to the 2018 AFP Payments Fraud Survey, instances of fraud reached an all-time high last year – 78 percent of organizations were victims of fraudulent activity. The study also revealed that checks were the most common source of fraud, as 74 percent of survey respondents experienced check fraud. As these numbers grow, many financial institutions, like West Jordan, Utah-based Mountain America Credit Union, have recognized the need for more effective security measures to protect their members from fraud.

Overcoming an Industry-Wide Challenge:

When an unauthorized transaction occurs, businesses are required by regulation to report fraudulent activity within two days compared to the 60-day timeframe allotted to consumers. Such a limited timeframe to report and dispute fraud oftentimes makes it harder for businesses to recover stolen funds. In an effort to attract more business and commercial members, Mountain America Credit Union needed a way to help these members quickly detect and respond to suspicious transactions, specifically checks and ACH debits, and protect their hard-earned funds from fraudsters.

However, conventional treasury management solutions and fraud prevention services, especially check positive pay, are typically built for banks, making it challenging for Mountain America and other credit unions aiming to effectively serve business members. Some fraud prevention services can even limit a credit union’s growth, employing labor-intensive and time-consuming processes that require staff to manually review for fraudulent transactions and communicate any suspicious activity to the member, which results in a less-than-ideal member experience.

ACH Alert to the Rescue:

Mountain America has enacted a more convenient and effective fraud prevention solution for their business members with ACH Alert’s PRO-CHEX and PRO-TECH solutions. With PRO-CHEX, Mountain America’s members can import issuance data and the daily capture file is transmitted to ACH Alert, where the two files are compared to create exceptions. Exceptions trigger an alert to the member to make a pay or no pay decision. This proactive approach puts the member in control and ensures that check fraud is prevented before it happens. Similarly, PRO-TECH facilitates a real-time debit approval process that triggers an actionable alert when an unauthorized ACH debit hits a member’s account, allowing the member to stop fraudulent ACH transactions immediately.

ACH Alert was a suitable choice for Mountain America as the company’s solutions can be readily integrated into the credit union’s core system. Unlike ACH Alert, most existing positive pay solutions are geared primarily toward banks and therefore, do not always support integration with credit union-specific systems. Mountain America saved time and resources by using ACH Alert’s technology, rather than building a solution internally.

Key Takeaways:

By implementing ACH Alert’s patented technology, Mountain America Credit Union can empower their members to fight fraud and protect their business’s hard-earned funds. When commercial members have the option to make pay or no-pay decisions in real time, unauthorized checks and ACH debits can be instantly detected and disputed, even before the transaction posts to the account.

Since implementing ACH Alert’s PRO-CHEX and PRO-TECH solutions for a pilot phase in May 2018, Mountain America has successfully monitored a total of $660,630 for several of its valued business members. During this timeframe, the credit union also helped prevent unauthorized transactions that resulted in returning a total of $15,398 for its business members.

Following the initial success of the implementation, Mountain America is configuring PRO-TECH and PRO-CHEX to enable single sign-on through its online banking system. This will allow the credit union to provide even more business members with easy, convenient access to ACH Alert’s patented fraud prevention tools. 

With ACH Alert’s PRO-CHEX and PRO-TECH solutions, Mountain America Credit Union offers business members greater control over the movement of funds within their accounts. Not only do these solutions deliver enhanced security and visibility for Mountain America’s members, they also enable the credit union to successfully serve a greater number of business members and achieve growth in the commercial space.

Learn more by checking out ACH Alert’s case study with Mountain America Credit Union here.