Be proactive instead of reactive to fraud.

Planters First Bank has a way to assist our business customers that will help them from falling victim to fraud. Positive Pay is a product/service that takes a company’s daily transactions and compares them to a registry of their accounts payables that they have uploaded to Business Online Banking as they are paid or set up as an ACH filter. Daily after processing if there are any exception transactions the customer must log in by 9:15 am and work their exceptions.

• ACH Positive Pay - customer has the bank set up filters for payees they do not want to be included. All other transactions will be listed to be worked as exceptions.

• Check Positive Pay - compares a registry uploaded by the customer and is compared to the daily paid items. Exception items are worked. Customers can also download an Outstanding and Paid Check report daily. Software is looking at the following before making a decision.

• Payee Match
• Check number
• Amount
• Date issued to be an early adopter of this great service.

COMING SOON: AUTOBOOKS

Easy invoicing and payments, all seamlessly integrated and available within your online and mobile banking.

Autobooks automatically creates invoices, accepts payments and pays bills so you can focus on growing your small business.

Perfect for you if:

• You need a convenient digital tool to manage your business
• You need to track invoices and expenses
• You are looking for an accounting solution

Please ask your Treasury Support Officer for more information if you’d like to be an early adopter of this great service.

NACHA RULES CHANGE ON MICRO-CREDIT VALIDATION

There are Nacha Rules (“Rules”} that are now in effect that you should understand specific to validating account information. Micro-credits are used to test the validity of an account and one of the ways Originators of WEB debits are validating the account as a fraud tool prior to initiating future WEB debits. This Rule defines Micro-Entries as ACH credits of less than $1, and any offsetting debits, for account validation. There are two phases of this rule with the first phase that became effective September 16, 2022. 

This Rule

• Requires that credit amounts must be equal to, or greater than, debit amounts, and must be transmitted to settle at the same time.
• Originators must use “ACCTVERIFY” in the company entry description field.
• Company name must be easily recognizable to Receivers and the same or similar to what will be used in subsequent entries.

The second phase becomes effective March 17, 2023, requiring Originators to use a commercially reasonable fraud detection system to validate the account. Stay tuned for more details on upcoming Nacha Rules.

FRAUD PREVENTION TIPS

DON’T SHARE SENSITIVE INFORMATION ONLINE: Be careful with what information you share online or on social media. By openly sharing things like pet names, schools you attended, links to family members, and your birthday, you can give a scammer all the information they need to guess your password or answer your security questions.

DON’T CLICK ON UNSOLICITED EMAIL: Don’t click on anything in an unsolicited email or text message asking you to update or verify account information. Look up the company’s phone number on your own (don’t use the one a potential scammer is providing), and call the company to ask if the request is legitimate.

 EXAMINE EMAIL ADDRESSES. Carefully examine the email address, URL, and spelling used in any correspondence. Scammers use slight differences to trick your eye and gain your trust.

BE CAREFUL ABOUT DOWNLOADING: Be careful what you download. Never open an email attachment from someone you don't know, and be wary of email attachments forwarded to you.

SET UP MULTIPLE SECURITY PROCEDURES: Set multiple security procedures with your financial institution and never disable them.  

 VERY PAYMENT REQUEST IN PERSON OR OVER THE PHONE WITH PEOPLE YOU KNOW: Verify payment and purchase requests in person if possible or by calling the person to make sure it is legitimate. You should verify any change in account number or payment procedures with the person making the request.

DON’T BE PRESSED TO SEND MONEY: Be especially wary if the requestor is pressing you to act quickly. Stop, validate and proceed with caution.

TRAIN ALL EMPLOYEES: it is important to train all employees on these attacks. Remember, it only takes one employee to click on a link and approve a payment.

DON’T DO BUSINESS SOLELY FROM AN EMAIL: If you receive a fraudulent email and email a payment instruction based on this email, you are opening yourself up to significant risk. Slow down, authenticate the request and discuss internally with management. Fraudsters depend on you NOT to verify the request/instruction to send a payment.

CONTACT US IF YOU FEEL YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED – Timing is of the essence with fraud. It is important that you report any unusual activity and/or request immediately so that we can turn off any payment channel that has been compromised.