Check fraud is a multi-billion dollar problem and a perpetual thorn in the sides of financial services providers and their clients. Yet as remote deposit capture technologies mature and take hold that paradigm has begun to shift. With state-of-the-art applications like CheckReview™, from Cachet, fraudulent checks can be shut out of check clearing completely.

CheckReview is a unique patent-pending solution and the latest addition to Cachet’s RDC Select product suite. CheckReview gets to work as soon as a check is scanned by a consumer or business customer using a standalone scanner or camera-equipped mobile device, pulling together all pertinent information from the check for a quick and thorough review before it is accepted for deposit. The duplicate detection engine that’s built into CheckReview automatically flags any check previously submitted through the system. And dollar amounts on each scanned item are compared to what’s been entered on the deposit ticket; those that don’t match get pulled by a reviewer.

What really sets CheckReview apart from other remote deposit technologies, though, are the high-resolution color images that clients can access in real time. These images are so clear they’re practically indistinguishable from the original items banks accept at branches and ATMs.

Last week Cachet had the privilege of demonstrating CheckReview at FinovateFall in New York City where over 1,000 attendees convened at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to watch as 64 companies (including Cachet) unveiled their latest and greatest fintech innovations.  During the networking sessions that followed, Cachet met with several financial institutions interested in learning how CheckReview could meet their organization’s unique needs.

CheckReview is highly customizable, because after all one-size-does-not-fit-all in financial services. The ability to set business rules is especially important, and can be customized to individual users. Rules, for example, can be set to flag for manual review those deposits that don’t meet certain standards, or that were submitted by new customers, while automatically accepting others. Customizing and generating reports is simple too.

Check fraud is a very real problem for organizations that issue and collect check payments. The American Bankers Association (ABA) reports that 73% of U.S. banks were victims of check fraud in 2010, and according to the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) check fraud is far and away the greatest source of payments frauds reported by its members. In 2010 93% of companies that were hit with actual or attempted payments frauds in 2010 were victims of check fraud, AFP reports. Even more disconcerting, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has estimated that the per-item cost of check fraud doubled between 2004 and 2010, from 18-cents per item to 36-cents, and that doesn’t even account for inflation.

Eradicating check fraud may be a tall order. But RDC technologies are up to the challenge, especially new leading edge applications like CheckReview. CheckReview addresses the check fraud challenge head on before suspicious items ever enter the collection stream. This becomes even more critical as growing numbers of financial services organizations implement mobile check deposit products, and more consumers are drawn to the convenience and “cool factor” of depositing checks from their mobile phones and tablets.