Electronic Check Acceptance Solution Cuts Fraud

Used with permission from Integrated Solutions for Retailers magazine, March 2006

With some 2,000 cellular telephone sales and services stores spread throughout the United States, Verizon Wireless could not afford to eliminate checks from its roster of customer payment options. At the same time, it needed an efficient means of check acceptance. This led the retailer to implement the Elec Check electronic check acceptance platform from Certegy Inc.

Elec Check simplifies check acceptance at the POS by eliminating the need for the movement of checks through multiple channels, as well as handling by multiple individuals, prior to arrival at the bank. Verizon Wireless sales associates begin the acceptance process by swiping every check written by a consumer through a check reader interfaced with the POS system. An imaging device captures an image of the document.

Information about the check writer (such as driver's license number), along with information pertaining to the transaction, is input into the POS terminal and transmitted to Certegy's server. That data is compared with information contained in the company's "Consumer Library," ascertaining that the customer holds the account against which the check is being written.