US-based financial risk and compliance software provider Unit21 has introduced new fraud prevention features for Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions.
The new features use Generative AI (GenAI) and machine learning (ML) to help banks, credit unions, payments companies, and fintechs detect and block risky transactions.
Unit21 said its new fraud solution prevents risky ACH transactions such as first-party fraud, account takeovers and scams by predicting fraudulent activity.
The solution leverages the company’s four key features, ACH risk scoring, ‘out of the box’ rules, counterparty risk, and GenAI agent for ACH fraud investigations.
Unit21 CEO and co-founder Trisha Kothari said: “With the steady rise in real-time payments among consumers, ACH fraud will continue to be a significant threat to the US financial ecosystem, challenging FIs and fintechs to figure out how to stop bad actors from gaining access to their networks.
“Our new ACH fraud solution uses GenAI and machine learning to bring real-time risk monitoring and investigating tools to fraud practitioners, empowering them to mitigate risk while further gaining their customers’ trust and loyalty along the way.
“As faster payments are adopted across fintechs and FIs, they will need a faster and better way to stay ahead. Unit21’s ACH fraud solution stops suspicious activity in its tracks and flags illicit behaviour before it ever has a chance to become an issue.”
As per the National Automated Clearinghouse Association (Nacha), same-day ACH volume saw a 47% growth year-over-year, compared to the first quarters of 2023 and 2024.
The growth in ACH volume was driven by factors including the continual increase in usage of real-time payment among consumers and businesses.
Unit21 deploys an ML model for FIs and fintechs, which leverages behavioural analysis, network data, entity, transaction history, and IP enrichment, and can flag R10s.
The company’s pre-built rules for preventing ACH fraud will reduce false positives and save time, while allowing filter and add conditions based on a business’ data.
Unit21’s Fraud Consortium helps FIs and fintechs to actively identify account or routing numbers and fuzzy name-matching schemes previously flagged as fraudulent anywhere in its network.
Its GenAI Agent swiftly flags and investigates suspicious activity and streamlines case management tasks, including online presence, adverse media searches and document analysis.
