Don't Become a Fraud Statistic

The cost of protecting your business from fraudulent financial transactions can be high—and it isn’t just measured in dollars and cents. There are other costs as well, from lost time and productivity to a damaged reputation and customer relationships.

Fraud is a worry most businesses share. According to Experian’s 2019 Global Identity and Fraud report, more than two-thirds of the world’s businesses reported an increased concern about fraud. And in the U.S., 80% of the businesses surveyed for the report saw an increase in online fraud losses between 2017 and 2018.

Yet many business owners don’t research or seek fraud prevention services until they’ve become a victim of fraud. With fraud prevention services from First Independent Bank to steps you can take within your own business, there are a number of ways businesses can keep their financial assets secure.

Fraud Prevention Services
At First Independent Bank, there are a variety of services available to help you be proactive about fraud. Two of our most popular tools are:

ACH Filter
An important part of the fraud suite, our ACH Fraud Filter is designed to safeguard your debit transactions. With it, you can create, maintain and update a list of Electronic Payment Authorizations (EPAs), allowing regular payees to be automatically approved (so your business doesn’t get bogged down) while also enabling you to receive alerts on unauthorized transactions. This way you can ensure only approved transactions post to your accounts. The alerts can be set up to occur as frequently—or as rarely—as you like, based on your needs and preferences. Positive Pay.

Positive Pay
Positive Pay works to detect potentially fraudulent checking and ACH transactions. With Check Positive Pay, you upload a formatted template of all the checks you issue, and First Independent Bank compares that list against the checks presented for payment. If a check doesn’t match up, it’s flagged as an exception, and you (or the administrator you designate) will need to provide approval. ACH Positive Pay lets you review exceptions and return unauthorized ACH debits to your account that occur through online banking.

More Tips for Fraud Prevention
What else can your business do to help deter bank fraud? There are various steps First Independent Bank recommends. For example:

• Identify your high-risk users such as HR, executives, IT managers, accounts and financial personnel. Review each for what is posted on social media, company websites and in the public domain, especially job duties/descriptions, hierarchal information, and out-of-office details.
• Implement appropriate technical controls for your technology. This includes mail filtering, two-factor authentication, complex passwords, patching/updating of all IT and security systems, and more.
• Develop critical policies. For example, one policy you’ll want to create is a wire transfer policy that documents your established processes.
• Write a comprehensive cyber incident response plan. If a breach occurs, what happens next?
• Perform security training regularly to keep it top of mind. Employees should know the basics of cyber and email security and be able to identify and deal with phishing attacks.

For more tips on how to safeguard your business from fraud, download this easy-to-follow checklist from First Independent Bank, which covers the important steps your organization needs to take today.

Taking steps to secure your financial assets now can save you time and money as well as headaches down the road. And we’re here to help with solutions that make it easier to safeguard against fraud.