Businesses are facing new and evolving payment fraud threats. While technology has made transactions faster and more efficient, it has also created opportunities for fraudsters to exploit outdated payment methods—especially paper checks.
The Rising Risk of Business Check Fraud
Check fraud remains one of the most common types of business payment fraud. Criminals intercept checks, alter details, or even create counterfeit versions. One of the fastest-growing schemes involves business identity theft: fraudsters set up fake companies with names similar to legitimate businesses. They then deposit intercepted checks into these accounts, making the fraud difficult to detect until it’s too late.
The challenge for many businesses is that check payments lack the security layers built into digital transactions, making them an easy target. Once a check has been intercepted, recovering lost funds can be time-consuming—and often unsuccessful.
Safer Alternatives for Business Payments
To reduce risk and protect your cash flow, businesses should consider moving away from paper checks and adopting more secure digital payment methods.
- ACH & Wire Transfers with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Electronic transfers are faster and safer when combined with MFA such as a token, ensuring only authorized users can approve and send funds.
- Positive Pay: A powerful fraud prevention tool, Positive Pay matches the checks your business issues against those presented for payment. Any mismatched items are flagged for review before processing, helping prevent unauthorized or altered checks from clearing.
- Bill Pay: An online bill pay system that allows your business to pay vendors, suppliers and service providers directly from your bank account through a secure online platform.
Staying One Step Ahead
Business leaders can’t afford to overlook payment security. By reducing reliance on checks and adopting more secure payment solutions like ACH, wires with MFA, and utilizing tools like Positive Pay, you significantly lower your risk of fraud and identity theft.
If you’d like to speak with a team member on how to utilize Bill Pay, tokens for wires & ACHs or Positive Pay, contact our team today.
