AccessPay, the leading corporate-to-bank integration provider, is pleased to announce the release of its new fraud and error identification tool, Detect. The launch of Detect marks the first in a series of anti-fraud and error prevention tools that AccessPay will be releasing over the coming months to support the UK’s corporates in proactively managing fraud and building operational resilience, as required by the new “UK SOx” corporate governance reforms.

Fraud is an increasingly serious issue for UK corporates. Data from KPMG shows the total value of fraud cases over £100k reaching the UK’s courts stood at £1.12bn in 2022, an uplift of 151% on 2021. In light of this, there is a growing regulatory focus on corporations to proactively manage fraud. Under new corporate governance reforms, unofficially dubbed UK SOx, large corporates will be required to produce fraud statements in their annual reports, which set out how they are detecting and preventing fraud. The same reforms also have a strong focus on operational risk and large corporates will need to demonstrate they have robust controls in place to mitigate the risk of errors in their finance and payment processes.

“Standards and expectations in relation to how corporates manage operational resilience and fraud risk are increasing,” states Anish Kapoor, CEO, AccessPay. “We have already experienced this in the financial services sector, where regulated firms are subject to new operational resilience rules and now there is UK SOx for large corporates. Yet, regardless of size, the risk of fraud and error is a very real concern for all businesses and can have a significant financial impact. The new additions to AccessPay’s product roadmap will help businesses of all sizes to take a multifaceted approach to managing fraud and preventing errors, as well as helping them to be audit-ready and able to demonstrate the impact of controls to regulators.”

The first tool to be launched as part of this roadmap is fraud and error identification tool, Detect. Detect adds an extra layer of control into corporate payment workflows, whereby the payment file is scanned and checked against several customisable rules, flagging any potential errors and issues, such as duplicate payments or potentially fraudulent transactions. This allows finance teams to promptly investigate any potential issues before payment runs are executed. While other detection technologies exist for UK BACs payments, Detect is noteworthy as it can handle all payment types, both domestic and cross-border. It is also fully integrated into the payments platform, making the detection of erroneous transactions a core step of the payment submission process and enabling faster responses by finance teams, if something does go awry.

Upcoming additions to AccessPay’s Fraud & Error Prevention Suite will focus on helping corporates take a more proactive approach to fraud and risk management, enabling them to catch potential issues before they become a problem.

“For corporates managing multiple banking partners and several bank accounts, it is astonishingly easy for potential issues with transactions to slip through the cracks. One of the biggest challenges for customers is that they only become aware of payment issues after the event,” says Kapoor. “AccessPay has long helped corporates in consolidating their payments data and automating processes, which helps reduce manual errors. Now we are taking this to another level, thanks to our new fraud and error prevention suite, which has been designed to alert finance teams to payment issues before making a transaction. Foresight is always better than hindsight.”