When times are tough companies can expect to see an increase in attempted fraud. The current economic environment has demonstrated this pattern with companies experiencing increases in employee fraud and third party attempts to make unauthorized charges on corporate accounts. The latest annual Association for Financial Professionals Payment Fraud Survey revealed that 71% of respondents had experienced actual or attempted payments fraud over the last year.
Regions is committed to providing solutions that will enable you to mitigate your exposure to fraud. We will help you evaluate your internal business processes and enhance your current risk management plan. By combining your unique cash management needs and business requirements with the appropriate safeguards, you can take a proactive approach to reducing your exposure to fraud.
Regions Treasury Management services offer an array of fraud protection solutions that work in tandem to substantially reduce your exposure to fraud. Such services include Regions Positive Pay, Payee Name Verification, ACH Services, EDI Services, Reconcilement, the Regions Visa Purchasing Card Program and the Spectrum Visa Card, among others.
What safeguards have you established to help protect your business from fraudulent practices?
- What internal controls do you utilize to protect against both internal and external fraud exposure? The battle against payments fraud requires innovative technical tools and high alert to guard against the latest technical capabilities and practices of criminals – both internal and external.
- Do you currently have a fraud prevention plan as part of your overall cash management process? Effective defense against payments fraud calls for a two-pronged approach: (1) The implementation of internal safeguards, and (2) the use of financial institutions’ anti-fraud services. Among the most effective fraud-fighting tools are Positive Pay and ACH debit blocks and filters.
- Are you currently utilizing Positive Pay services? ACH services? Reconcilement services? Payroll cards instead of checks? Have you considered reducing your risk exposure by utilizing additional tools to enhance your current safeguards against fraud?
- Does your company write checks? If so, what is your estimated monthly check volume? Checks are the most vulnerable payment instrument. Almost all organizations that experienced attempted or actual fraud were victims of check fraud. Organizations utilizing such tools as ACH services and payroll cards are much less likely to fall victim to fraud.
- Does your company issue payroll checks? If so, how many payroll checks do you issue monthly? While your company is still at high risk for check fraud whether you issue 1 check per month or 1,000,000, your exposure to fraud increases exponentially with each check issued.
- As part of your company’s risk management policy, what are you doing to ensure compliance with reasonable commercial standards under the Uniform Commercial Code? You have a responsibility to prevent losses resulting from counterfeits or forgeries, so it is important that you reconcile bank statements in a timely fashion and notify us if payment has been made on a counterfeit or forged check.
To help protect your business from fraud, we strongly recommend the following best practices.
Best practices for online security
Best practices for paper processes
Best practices for electronic processes
Other fraud prevention resources:
FBI Intelligence Notice
Federal Trade Commission
Internet Crime Complaint Center
Reporting Fraud
If you believe you are a victim of fraud or have been the recipient of a suspicious communication, call Regions Commercial Client Services immediately at 1-800-787-3905.