Topic:
Speaker:
Jeffery Cronin (Chief Strategy Officer, Zenwork)
Description:
New ACH fraud-monitoring requirements are now in effect, expanding the responsibilities of businesses that originate vendor payments through the ACH Network.
Under Phase 2 of the Nacha Operating Rules, all non-consumer ACH Originators, regardless of payment volume, must establish risk-based processes reasonably intended to identify payments suspected of being unauthorized or initiated under false pretenses. Organizations must also review and update these processes at least annually.
This is not a federal regulation. It is a Nacha Operating Rule governing participation in the ACH Network. However, it has practical implications for businesses, accounting firms, and finance teams that initiate vendor ACH payments.
ACH fraud does not always start with a compromised bank account. An authorized employee may be deceived by a vendor impersonation email, fraudulent bank-detail change, urgent payment instruction, or other convincing request. The employee may approve the transaction, but the payment was still induced through false pretenses.
In this session, Jeffrey Cronin will explain what the new rule means for AP and finance teams and how organizations can assess their current payment workflow. The discussion will cover vendor-information collection, bank-detail changes, high-risk payments, approval responsibilities, exception handling, documentation, and annual review.
Attendees will also see how Zenwork Payments can support important parts of a broader ACH fraud-readiness program through structured vendor requests, conditional bill approvals, role-based access, ACH payment execution, transaction visibility, approval history, and audit records.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand what changed under Nacha’s Phase 2 fraud-monitoring requirements.
- Identify how the rule affects businesses originating vendor ACH payments.
- Distinguish a Nacha Operating Rule from a federal law or regulation.
- Recognize false-pretenses fraud, including vendor impersonation, business email compromise, and fraudulent payment instructions.
- Identify workflow gaps involving emailed bank details, urgent requests, high-value payments, unclear responsibilities, and incomplete approval records.
- Apply additional review to new vendors, payment-information changes, unusual instructions, and higher-risk transactions.
- Establish defined roles for bill creation, review, approval, payment scheduling, and exception handling.
- Document how suspicious payments are identified, escalated, approved, rejected, or held.
- Prepare for the required annual review and updating of fraud-monitoring processes.
- Use Zenwork Payments to support structured vendor-data collection, amount-based approvals, role-based access, ACH payment tracking, and audit evidence.
Speaker
Zenwork