Positive Pay Workgroup at OrboGraph Check Fraud Roundtable Addresses Industry Challenges
- Check fraud steals billions from businesses each year
- Payment fraud is a particularly pressing issue
- Businesses have exhibited low Positive Pay adoption rates
Despite massive advances in fraud-prevention technology, check fraud continues to siphon billions from businesses each year, with fraudsters performing feats of deception reminiscent of the greatest magicians—only with far costlier consequences and far less entertainment value. However, as highlighted in the August 28, 2025, edition of the BID Daily Newsletter, the parallels between master illusionists like Dai Vernon and today's check fraudsters are more than skin-deep: both rely on misdirection, but for vastly different ends.
Payment fraud remains a pressing concern, with losses in the Americas reaching $21 billion in 2023 and 94% of bank executives reporting encounters with check fraud in the past 18 months. One solution—Positive Pay—has proven remarkably effective at halting these crimes in their tracks. In fact, according to research by NEACH Payments Group, 77% of businesses using Positive Pay report fewer check fraud attempts or losses. By having businesses send their issued check details to their financial institution for cross-checking before funds are dispersed, Positive Pay eliminate tactics such as check washing, in which criminals alter legitimate checks for their own benefit.
Reason for Low Adoption
Yet, according to the BID Daily Newsletter, Positive Pay has seen sluggish adoption, with only about 35% of businesses participating.
The barriers are well-documented by a recent Alkami/Datos Insights report: some community financial institutions (CFIs) only introduce Positive Pay after fraud has already occurred:, the process can be unintuitive, and: nearly a quarter of businesses say their bank never mentioned the service. To reverse this trend, the newsletter recommends steps such as proactive fraud education, making Positive Pay a default onboarding feature, bundling it with other fraud protection tools, and streamlining the process to better fit into small business workflows.
Updates and Enhancements to Positive Pay
In addition to the low adoption of Positive Pay, many FIs see a need for improvements and enhancements to the solution. At the recent OrboGraph Check Fraud Roundtable, fraud vendors and fraud experts from FIs of all size collaborated in the "Positive Pay Workgroup" to outline current challenges with today's Positive Pay and provide their insights on what is needed to make Positive Pay more effective.
The discussion centered on two major categories: onboarding and quality of the data.
Many FIs encountered challenges onboarding the clients -- whether it dealt with technology and internal resources or ensuring that the customer is utilizing the system correctly. Additionally, end-users may not follow the timelines for uploading issuer files or reviewing exceptions, which caused fraudulent items to slip through.
Additionally, the fintech vendors and FIs noted that, even when the customer is onboarded, there are difficulties with low quality data. For instance, many ERP or accounting systems truncate the payee name, as there are character limits to outputs. Therefore, longer payee names are missing characters which made matching the payee difficult -- causing more exceptions.
So, what can we do as an industry to improve Positive Pay? Well, that's exactly what the workgroup is currently concentrating on. While there is no current resolution, OrboGraph and the Positive Pay Workgroup will be diligently meeting to solve the issues.
Want to be a part of the Positive Pay Workgroup? Email marketing@orbograph.com to participate.