FedACH Risk® RDFI Alert Service

The FedACH Risk RDFI Alert Service provides notice of unusual or noteworthy conditions within a Receiving Depository Financial Institution’s (RDFI) incoming FedACH® Service batches and/or files and/or within the RDFI account holder’s incoming items. The service helps alert the RDFI and/or its account holders to potential fraud attempts, to significant origination errors, to situations requiring further action and to conditions of interest. View the FedACH Risk Management Services product sheet (PDF) to learn how the RDFI Alert Service fits into the entire suite of FedACH Risk Management Services. Request that we contact you regarding your interest in FedACH Risk Management Services.

Key Features

  • Access the service through your existing FedLine® Customer Access Solution: FedLine Web® or FedLine Advantage®.
  • Prepare to provide health care remittance information by identifying providers receiving electronic health care payments; find out how with “Help with Health Care” (PDF)
  • Be alerted to specific conditions via informational notifications that do not interfere with the normal flow of transactions.
  • Target alert notifications to fit specific applications by creating alert criteria based on combinations of up to eight different fields.
  • Administer the service for multiple routing transit numbers through a single access point by signing up to be a service participation point.
  • Use the new Alert Scan Result screens in the FedLine Web® access solution to research alert notifications, to drill down into batches to view item level information and to derive returns.
  • Receive expanded information from e-mail notifications about batches and items triggering alerts.
  • Take advantage of tiered pricing. Batch and/or item-level alert criteria sets are priced by tier, with per-criteria fees decreasing as tier thresholds are reached. The criteria counts used to determine tiers are calculated by adding together criteria sets for the RDFI Alert Service and the Risk Origination Monitoring Service. File-level criteria continue to be included in your FedLine® Access Solution monthly fee.

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How It Works

  • The turnkey, user-friendly service requires no additional information technology resources at your institution.
  • The service monitors FedACH Service output batches, files and/or items based on alert criteria thresholds you establish in the service.
  • A choice of ACH field combinations lets you configure alert criteria thresholds to address a variety of information needs. Review definitions for the available alert criteria field options (PDF).
  • The service lets you build batch and item-level alert threshold criteria based on combinations of up to eight requirements: ODFI RTN, company/originator name, company ID, SEC code, company entry description, entry/addenda count, debit and/or credit dollar amount and immediate or same day settlement. Select file thresholds based on debit dollar amount, credit dollar amount and/or transaction (item and addenda) count.
  • The service compares each outbound file and the batches it contains against the thresholds you have defined and, at the time of each FedACH Service file distribution, sends e-mail alerts to your designated points of contact on any batches or files exceeding your thresholds.
  • For item-level criteria, the service compares a designated receiver's items against thresholds at the close of the FedACH Service processing day, and conditions exceeding thresholds generate automatic e-mail notifications to your designated account holder contacts.

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Service Benefits

To compliance and risk management

  • Use the service to help proactively manage your potential risks as a RDFI.
  • Strengthen and support your institution's overall risk management strategy.
  • Alert your institution to potential fraud attempts.
  • Identify batches containing unusually large numbers of transactions and addenda, which may indicate possible fraudulent activities such as phishing for valid account numbers.
  • Set up alerts for incoming batches from originators on fraud watch lists and/or for incoming batches containing SEC codes of interest such as WEB and TEL.
  • Prepare to provide health care remittance information by identifying providers receiving electronic health care payments; find out how with “Three Step Program for Help with Health Care” (PDF)
  • Leverage historical reporting features to help address audit and compliance concerns.
  • Strengthen your risk management processes by making your institution's ACH receipt more visible to your institution, even if you outsource your FedACH processing or have complex organizational structures.

To operations efficiency

  • Gain valuable time for research and action from notifications that arrive throughout the day.
  • Act on potential issues earlier to minimize their effect on your institution.
  • Use the service to help you retire old ACH receipt RTNs.  The Quick Reference Guide (PDF) shows you how to set up and review alerts associated with remaining activity.
  • Improve time-consuming and potentially error-prone manual monitoring processes.
  • Initiate research or due diligence based on notification of incoming conditions such as batches containing IAT items or batches of unusually large size.
  • Prepare for situations that could impact your institution's reserve account, such as late-arriving immediate returns, by setting criteria to alert on immediate batches with values of $1 million or more.
  • Use debit and/or credit dollar thresholds set at the batch level to help alert your institution to significant origination errors such as extra zeros or similar keying mistakes.
  • Set up criteria to alert on incoming batches from originators with recurring quality issues.
  • Employ the drill down capabilities of research screens designed specifically for the RDFI Alert Service to speed and simplify research and resolution efforts.
  • Identify all accounts impacted by a fraudulent origination attempt by drilling down into batch detail to see associated accounts.
  • Automate customer notifications and eliminate courtesy calls and ad hoc research requests.

To customer service

  • Provide proactive notifications to key customers as a demonstration of your institution's commitment to customer service.
  • Communicate the arrival of incoming items of interest to key account holders by combining item-level alert thresholds with automatic e-mail notifications.
  • Customize the white-branded Corporate Benefits (PDF) to present the value of the FedPayments Reporter and FedACH Risk RDFI Alert services to your corporate clients.
  • Notify of the arrival of items such as corporate payments, cash concentration transactions, tax refunds and grant money, for example.
  • Proactively help customers protect themselves by setting alert thresholds for conditions such as incoming debit items in excessive dollar amounts, large dollar return items or items with SEC codes of particular concern such as those identifying converted checks.
  • Provide alerts to receivers on unwanted, recurring transactions or attempted debits on revoked transactions.
  • Reference the service's customer activity reports if fees are to be charged for the provision of reports.

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Review Customer Testimonials

“Shortly after we signed up for the file alert service in November 2008, we received an incoming debit to a consumer account in the amount of $10,744,259.08.”

– Ramona M. Chadwick, AAP, First Community Bank

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Service Setup

Using the FedACH Risk Alert Service requires only that your institution has access to the FedLine Web or FedLine Advantage access solution, that your designated staff has access to FedACH Information Services and that you complete and submit Part 6C (PDF), and for more complex processing arrangements, the additional Part 6E, Section A (PDF) or Section B (PDF), of the FedACH Participation Agreement. Then you are ready to set your monitoring criteria and begin putting this valuable monitoring tool to work.

To start using the FedACH Risk RDFI Alert Service, visit the Service Setup page or contact your FedACH Sales Specialist or your FedACH Central Operations Site.

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Access Easy–to–Use Tools

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