Executive Summary
While check writing continues to decrease—Federal Reserve check collection has declined 82% over the past 30 years — check fraud continues to rise. In fact, experts believe check fraud will amass $24 billion in 2024, and the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) reports that checks continue to be the payment method most vulnerable to fraud.
However, Positive Pay, a tool that financial institutions (FIs) can offer to help their business clients/members mitigate check x fraud, offers a possible solution. Designed to catch fraud before it occurs, Positive Pay leverages an approach that involves the FI matching the date, check number, dollar amount, and account number of each check presented against a list provided by their business client/member. This “double check” helps to protect against forged, altered, and counterfeit checks. Today, core providers offer Positive Pay as a payments service, and other third parties feature it as part of a fraud detection system.
While effective, not all businesses have chosen to use Positive Pay and not all FIs offer it. To gain a better understanding of how and why Positive Pay is used/not used by FIs and businesses, NEACH Payments Group (NPG) launched a survey of these audiences. Fielded in Q3 and Q4 2024, questions sought information on the current use of and opportunities for Positive Pay.
Select the icon below to download the Positive Pay Market Survey Infographic.