Whenever real-time payments are discussed, the issues of credit, financial risk, and fraud prevention and detection are not far behind. So when NACHA announced that it was issuing proposals for a same-day ACH payment scheme in the US, I am sure that the issues of risk and payment fraud were front of mind for many in the industry.

It’s important to remember, however, that the scheme proposed by NACHA is not a real-time payment scheme. What is being suggested is a same-day settlement mechanism that requires the receiving bank only to make funds available by the end of business. Still, it does put fraud detection methods under the spotlight once more.

In their preparation for the new NACHA scheme, banks will need to consider whether their current systems will be able to handle the shorter timeframes, and those responsible for fraud prevention will need to play a key role in the development of a bank’s response to the new proposals. The ability of banks to prevent fraud in real time or even near real time offers a number of distinct competitive advantages both in terms of minimizing fraud losses and improving the customer experience. In the light of these benefits, the NACHA proposals can be viewed not so much as an obligation but as an opportunity to expand fraud-fighting provisions.