The PaymentsJournal Podcast

Last year, the treasurer’s office in Warren County, New York sent $3.3 million to what it believed was the county’s roadwork and maintenance contractor. It was not—the payments were instead routed to a fraudulent account. Because the county had recently switched from paper checks to ACH, the treasurer’s office had no account verification policies in […] The post From a Checkbox to a Differentiator: Redefining ACH Fraud Monitoring appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

As financial fraud continues to accelerate, its impact on victims goes far beyond monetary loss. The emotional and behavioral effects are long-lasting, shaping future decisions and sometimes undermining trust in their financial institutions. Substantial progress has been made in strengthening fraud detection and prevention, but much work remains—especially in the age of AI. In a […] The post The Emotional Toll of Financial Fraud appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

Many credit unions are grappling with the differences between cryptocurrency, stablecoins and tokenized deposits—and whether these innovations fit into their business model. It’s important to take a step back and allow strategic evaluation, rather than urgency, to drive decisions around digital assets. Velera and its Digital Asset Lab are helping credit unions overcome the “fear […] The post What Should Credit Unions Be Doing with Crypto? appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

In the past, banks and businesses could build rapport by delighting customers over several interactions. That window has largely disappeared amid the impersonal nature of today’s digital ecosystem—and the growing sophistication of fraud. The surge in fraud and money laundering has prompted many experts to advocate for a return to a zero-trust framework, where every […] The post The Fate of Agentic Commerce Hinges on an Elusive Resource: Trust appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

High-profile data breaches at major retailers exposed thousands of consumers’ personal account numbers (PANs), spurring the adoption of tokenization—a solution that replaces sensitive account data with surrogate values, protecting both consumers and merchants. As tokenization scaled, its benefits proved to extend well beyond fraud prevention. Merchants often saw meaningful lifts in authorization rates. But the […] The post Tokenization: From Security Tool to Future-Ready Payments appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

For many small business owners, the workday doesn’t end when customers leave. It continues late into the evening—logging into multiple dashboards, exporting spreadsheets, reconciling transactions, and trying to make sense of scattered financial data. In the absence of a centralized solution, many have been forced to stitch together a patchwork of banks, fintech apps, payment […] The post Despite Fintech Encroachment, Banks Can Remain the Go-To for SMBs appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

With the advent of faster payments, many financial organizations have prioritized speed over fraud detection. Consumers expect instant transactions, but banks must still protect themselves and their customers from fraud. Running fraud detection in the background—analyzing contextual signals and historical data—helps strike the right balance between speed and security. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Diarmuid Thoma, […] The post From Reaction to Prevention: Rethinking Payment Fraud appeared first on PaymentsJournal.

ACH is a critical part of the U.S. payment infrastructure, driving a significant portion of transaction volumes and supporting important use cases such as supplier payments, payroll, and many others. Despite competition from newer rails that serve similar purposes, ACH continues to grow at a remarkable pace. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Radha Suvarna, Chief Product […] The post ACH and the Path Toward Future-Ready Payments appeared first on PaymentsJournal.