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New fraud prevention tool launched by BofA

by Kylene Casanova

Bank of America’s new service offering, Account Validation, will assist in fraud prevention by enabling public and private sector clients to verify the status of an account and authenticate the account owner prior to initiating an electronic credit or debit payment. The Account Validation service is supported by Early Warning Services, LLC (EWS), which is owned by seven U.S. financial institutions, including Bank of America. Early Warning Services is a fintech company that provides identity, risk, and payment solutions to financial institutions.

David Kretz, head of Global Payments in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America, states “with fraud on the rise, companies can no longer make assumptions about whether the person or entity on the other end of a payment is who they say they are. Account Validation and other fraud prevention tools are essential for today’s treasury teams.”

Real-time payments and remittance data has always been a key desire for most companies. One of the key components of Account Validation is the ability for companies to use the service prior to making payments to consumers via ACH, wire transfer, or a real-time payment, responding to clients’ inquiries in near real-time. Account Validation also helps to address concerns of fraud on the ACH Network, as the system could help companies comply with the NACHA WEB Debit Account Validation rule, where originators are required to use a “commercially reasonable fraudulent transaction detection system” to screen WEB debit transactions for fraud.
 
Another feature of Account Validation is helping to prevent misdirected payments, which can occur when a payee inadvertently provides an incorrect account number. Stephanie Wolf, head of Financial Institutions Sales and head of Business Banking Sales in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America, further said, “Account Validation can help companies prevent fraudulent payments without compromising on speed for valid payments to vendors and contractors. Thus, by reducing misdirected payments, companies will also save a considerable amount of time and money it takes to attempt to retrieve misdirected payments.” Bank of America continues to be a leader in B2C and B2B payments with products like Account Validation.

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