The upcoming Nacha rule changes around ACH transaction monitoring went live recently, providing a wake-up call for community banks, credit unions and mid-sized financial institutions. While it may seem early to make predictions, these updates could seriously shake up operations, particularly at small and mid-sized financial institutions that manage and receive ACH transactions.

Any rule changes Nacha dispenses have a broad impact. Nacha, which governs the ACH Network, the payment system that drives safe, smart and fast direct deposits and direct payments reaching all U.S. bank and credit union accounts, made 31.5 billion ACH Network payments in 2023, valued at $80.1 trillion. The recent changes to Nacha's rules, especially the introduction of risk-based ACH transaction monitoring, have significant implications and are designed to combat the rising tide of fraud, particularly credit-push payment fraud, where the payer initiates the payment and scams such as business email compromise (BEC), vendor impersonation and payroll impersonation are becoming increasingly common.