At NACHA Payments 2018, ACH Alert, an award-winning provider of patented, innovative fraud prevention technology for financial institutions of all sizes, announced the launch of two new services: PRO-TECH RT and PRO-TECH CR. The solutions enable account holders to accept or reject incoming real-time payments and incoming ACH credits, respectively.

Financial institutions providing PRO-TECH RT and PRO-TECH CR can empower account holders with greater visibility and control over their finances, which has become increasingly important as real-time payments and same-day ACH transactions become standard. 

With PRO-TECH RT, account holders can establish parameters for incoming real-time payments and determine what conditions should prompt an alert. The alert, which can be sent via text, email or both, provides visibility on the status of the payment. Additionally, account holders can set up in advance an approved or blocked list based on factors such as payment amount, frequency, sender and start/end dates to automatically manage future payment decisions in real time.  

PRO-TECH CR provides similar support for convenient, interactive control over incoming ACH credits using functions like those offered by ACH Alert’s PRO-TECH solution for debits. This proactive, customer-centric approach to fraud prevention enables financial institutions and their customers to protect their funds and effectively monitor account activity. Account holders enrolled in PRO-TECH CR decide what conditions should prompt an alert. Upon receipt of the alert, they can then return or accept the incoming ACH credit and if desired, add the sender to an approved list. 

ACH Alert hosted a real-time payments focus group earlier this year with treasury management professionals from five of its largest financial institution clients and explored the strategic payments issues they face. ACH Alert also invited Mark Majeske, Vice President of Product Development and Strategy for The Clearing House, to join the discussions and share his expertise. 

“Making sure that financial institutions are comfortable with the risk of receiving real-time payments is crucial to achieve widespread adoption. Beyond offering heightened visibility, PRO-TECH RT and PRO-TECH CR ensure that incoming payments are processed according to account holders’ preferences, which is vital for certain industry verticals like mortgage originators, insurance providers and property management companies,” said Deborah Peace, chief executive officer of ACH Alert. “For instance, if cancellation, eviction or foreclosure proceedings have started, it is critical that these companies can reject incoming payments.”

“Since its founding, The Clearing House has played a key role in addressing various regulatory and payments issues within the financial industry to support a safe, sound and competitive banking system. Our latest efforts have been focused on the launch of a real-time payments system,” said Tim Mills, Vice President of Business Development at The Clearing House. “We strive to deeply understand the challenges financial institutions face with real-time payments processing, fraud and security. By doing so, we can ensure that all institutions, including community banks and credit unions, can effectively leverage the latest payments infrastructure.”