Check fraud is the number one type of payment fraud facing businesses today as they are the primary target of check fraud professionals. It's a growing problem that costs businesses billions of dollars each year. Citizens’ Positive Pay service helps safeguard businesses against check fraud. It provides businesses with the peace of mind that only authentic, authorized checks will be paid from their accounts.

How Does Positive Pay Work?

Before you issue checks, you submit the check information to Citizens through Business Online Banking. The information submitted includes the check number and dollar amount for each check you have issued. Your check issue information is known as your “issue file.”

As checks are presented to Citizens for payment, they are electronically matched with your issue file. Only items that exactly match the two fields on each check in the issue file will be paid from the account. Presented items that do not match the check number and dollar amount are considered “exceptions.”

Exceptions must be decisioned each day. You simply logon to Business Online Banking to view exceptions and then instruct Citizens to pay or return each item. If we do not receive your instructions by 11:00 a.m. CST, the exceptions will be returned and will not be posted to your account.

Convenience:

• Submit check issue information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via Business Online Banking.
• Upload a file of issued checks or input items individually.
• Transmit information as checks are issued throughout the day.
• Make daily pay/return decisions online.

Benefits:

• Unauthorized checks are returned before they are paid from your account.
• Saves you the time, money, and the hassle involved in dealing with check fraud.
• Positive Pay helps protect your account from counterfeit, duplicate, and altered checks.

Security:

• Checks presented at our teller windows are also matched against your issue file to determine if the item should be cashed or not.
• Citizens does a 2-way match on each item to ensure fraudulent checks are identified.
• Our system is real time, so your account is protected as soon as we receive your issue file.

For more information about Positive Pay, please contact the Business Resource Center at 888-811-6344. Call us today to schedule a free consultation!