Fraud Prevention

Protecting your businesses’ assets is more important than ever. With Tompkins’ Fraud Prevention solutions, we give you the tools you need to help mitigate your risk of fraud.

Positive Pay

Your company can enjoy the prevention of Positive Pay, an automated check and ACH debit matching program. Positive Pay allows you to monitor checks and ACH debits processed for payment against your account and reject unauthorized transactions before losses occur. Positive Pay compliments the internal security measures you employ to protect against unauthorized items being paid. For check transactions through Positive Pay, you simply upload issuance data to the bank when your company issues checks. We then verify the paid checks based on account number, check number, check date and dollar amount.

When items are presented for payment, our matching and validation process allows us to quickly identify checks that are inconsistent with the data provided. Items that do not match your issue data will be reported as exceptions – via an email notification on or before 9:00 am. You review the exception items and advise the bank by 2:00 pm whether to pay or return each item. All exception items are image-enabled, resulting in a Pay/Return decision process that is timely and easy for your staff to complete.

For ACH debit transactions, you assign ACH filter rules within the Positive Pay system for partners and vendors that are  authorized to electronically (ACH) debit your account. ACH Filter rules can specify either exact or maximum dollar amounts for authorization. Any item(s) that meets the criteria you establish will automatically post to your account. You are alerted to any exception transactions to your criteria, safeguarding you against fraudulent activity. Upon email notification of the rejected items, you review the exception items and advise the bank by 2:00 pm whether to pay or return each item.

Positive Pay with Payee Match

Payee Match enhances the Bank’s Positive Pay service by allowing you to include the Payee as an additional point of comparison between checks presented to your company’s issuance data file. It's an easy way to strengthen your fraud control measures and enjoy greater security. We match the Payee name that should appear on the check from your issue file with the actual name on the item presented for payment. As with our standard Positive Pay program, online delivery of exception item images speeds your decision-making process and helps you reduce your risk. As an added layer of protection, the Bank also offers Positive Pay/Payee Positive Pay verification at all of our branch teller lines. Account number, check number, check date, dollar amount and payee name validation (for Payee Positive Pay customers) is performed on checks presented at our branches for payment and only those matching the issuance information provided will be honored.

Reverse Positive Pay

Instead of providing us with a file of issued checks you will receive daily information from us on all prior day’s checks and/or ACH debits presented for payment. You can also assign ACH filter rules within the Positive Pay system for partners and vendors that are authorized to electronically (ACH) debit your account or review those transactions daily with your checks. You review the items and advise the bank by noon whether to pay or return each item. The service helps you save time and money by automating the labor-intensive reconciliation process and simplifies accounting tasks.

Benefits include:

• Online delivery of exception item images speeds your decision-making process and helps you reduce your risk Reduce time and cost associated with monitoring daily liquidity by making automated daily borrowing/pay down decisions after all transactions have been posted to the deposit account.
• We also offer Positive Pay/Payee Positive Pay verification at all of our branch locations.
• Save time and money by automating the labor-intensive reconciliation process and simplifies accounting tasks.

ACH Block / ACH Filter

Tompkins offers two ACH Fraud Protection options to help you monitor and control ACH items. You determine at the account level how you want to protect your accounts.

 ACH Filter: Enables you to establish parameters for filtering ACH debits presented to your account. We will automatically return all ACH items for that account, except those that are pre-authorized. Authorized ACH Originators are identified by providing the Bank with specific identifier information, such as originating company name and Company ID number.

ACH Block: Prevents all ACH debits from posting to your account. When you establish the service, we will automatically return all ACH debits that are directed to your bank account. No customer intervention is necessary once the service is set up.