We're considering offering ACH on demand capabilities to our retail Internet customers. We're struggling with how to verify that the outside account the person requests be setup is indeed theirs. A prenote is of limited value, and not all institutions will verify account info over the phone.

Is anybody here offering this service, and how do you manage the risk?

Thanks.

A "lo-tech" suggestion -- Ask the customer to provide a voided deposit ticket or check on each account they want to access. At least this will give you some assurance the customer is accessing his/her own accounts.

Be aware that giving the customer ACH access -- even if you control where the funds can go -- makes your monitoring of transactions for suspicious activity the more complicated.

[This message has been edited by John Burnett (edited 01-09-2002).]