GoCardless introduces new payer verification functionality

We’re excited to announce that we’ve launched new GoCardless verification functionality that is designed to help customers collecting ACH debit payments reduce failed payments and fight fraud.

US businesses are losing money to fraud

The scale of the problems that fraud causes is large with combating fraud high on our customers’ priorities. In a survey completed by GoCardless in February 2021, 46% of US businesses with more than $1.4 million in annual revenue reported fraud as their primary threat. Those same businesses reported losing 2-3% of annual revenue to fraud - and that doesn’t include the effort and people hours spent trying to resolve fraud. 

How GoCardless is tackling payment fraud

We previously introduced Verified Mandates by GoCardless, a feature for US businesses looking to decrease fraud. Powered by Plaid, Verified Mandates by GoCardless is a fraud prevention tool that verifies your new customers’ bank details, giving you the peace of mind that they are who they say they are. Your customers enter a few details in the checkout process and we help them login to their online banking to verify their information. If everything checks out, your customers are verified and you both receive an instant confirmation. 

Unfortunately, fraud doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When you increase the checks you perform on payers, you decrease the likelihood that they’ll complete the checkout process - it’s a delicate balance. This is why we’re introducing additional, lighter touch verification checks that don’t require any input from payers.

Our new ACH bank account validation tool

Now when payers in the US try to create an ACH authorization, the payer’s bank details can automatically be authenticated as 1) currently connected to an open bank account and 2) able to accept ACH debits. The best part is this is all done without any input from payers. If the customer’s account isn’t supported, we’ll show them an error message and prompt them to use a different account.

What problem is this solving?

In the US, payers sometimes set up authorizations with a bank account type that doesn’t support ACH debits, or with an account that isn’t open. They might do this accidentally, or they might do it on purpose. By using this new verification functionality, you’ll ensure that your business is protected against this happening.

Remaining compliant

By validating that bank accounts are valid and accept ACH Debits, you’ll be ensuring that you’re compliant with the NACHA ACH Web debits rule, allowing you to future proof your payments strategy.

How can you use the new ACH debit verification functionality?

GoCardless customers collecting via ACH have two options.

1. If you use Billing Request Flows, GoCardless will automatically implement this functionality and check the payer's bank details for you.

2. If you use Custom Payment Pages and you haven’t yet updated them to be built on Billing Request Flows, then you can query our Bank Details Lookup endpoint.