We’ve all had the experience of a payment going wrong. Maybe we entered the incorrect payment details, perhaps the invoice was hacked, the recipients account details changed or you were the victim of internal fraud.
Whether you’re paying an invoice through your desktop banking platform or entering a new payee’s details on your mobile app, there are steps you can take to protect your cash.
Safeguarding Transactions
How can you increase the likelihood of your money reaching its intended recipient?
- Segregate duties, to improve the chance of detecting errors. The person/s preparing the payment schedule, should be different to the person/s authorising the payment.
- Give thought to the signatory access on your bank account, who do you want to have control of the money? Consider two signatories for approval and use a token for extra security.
- Utilise products created to minimise fraud and data entry errors, EFTSure is a popular offering (contact us if you want more information about EFTSure)
- Setup direct debits with suppliers, this will save you time and ensure payments are going to the intended recipient by the due date.
Security for Real Time Payments
The anticipated changes to real-time bank transfers is due to start in February 2018, allowing customers to make and receive real-time payments 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Users will be able to create a ‘Pay ID’ instead of BSB and account numbers, which is likely to decrease the occurrence of entering incorrect payee details. Payment systems will also up the text limit of the description field, so users can include 280 characters.
These changes are undoubtedly set to make transfers faster and simpler than ever before, but they also come with an increased risk of fraud. Spikes in scam activity have been seen when similar systems have been launched overseas.
To counteract these issues banks will be constantly conducting live screening of transactions, looking for any unusual activity inconsistent with a customer’s habits.
We are committed to helping our clients stay ahead of industry practices and new technologies. When it comes to cash transfers and real time payments we believe convenience is important but security is vital.
Contact us today to see how we can protect your payments, save business costs and, ultimately, valuable time.
