LexAlign Messages

Hi,

In our conversations, many of you have expressed interest in how we can automate your annual customer ACH audits.  Based on our conversations with Nacha, there are two parts to the ACH audit:

ACH Part 1:  Security

In our Nacha conversations, we heard that assessing the customer for IT and information security is a required part of the annual audit.  This is not trivial, as it’s gaps in your customers’ security that fraudsters are exploiting in the extraordinary explosion of credit-push fraud, which Nacha has called the now dominant form of ACH fraud.

But here’s the good news:  we also heard that the LexAlign Security Diagnostic would satisfy this requirement. 

The LexAlign Security Diagnostic enables customers to do a self-assessment against what the Federal Trade Commission recommends as appropriate and prudent practices.  Financial regulators defer to the FTC for guidance on business security to address the extraordinary risk of fraud that targets them.

The LexAlign Security Diagnostic was designed to satisfy Part 1 of the ACH audit and addresses Nacha’s call for A New Risk Management Framework for the Era of Credit-Push Fraud by recruiting, sensitizing and empowering the customer as the front layer in the layered approach to security that regulators expect.

ACH Part 2: For Originators

Part 2 of the annual audit assesses and helps the customer with adherence to the Rules on, among other things, the appropriate use of SEC codes, transaction accuracy, and third-party notices, authorizations, and cancellations.  LexAlign will be launching Part 2 for Originators in early 2024.  

Start with Security

We recommend starting with Part 1 to help customers defend against credit-push fraud.  In addition to helping the customers identify and remediate gaps, the LexAlign Security Diagnostic also furnishes the customer with a customized Security Policy as required under the Rules in case they don’t have one. 

You can obtain our solution with a simple two-page addendum to your existing FIS agreement. 

Hi,

Your deposits aren’t secure unless your customers are secure.

We’ve spoken to a number of FIS clients who are interested in our forthcoming ACH Diagnostic, expected in early 2024.  The ACH Diagnostic will complete our offering for treasury, with Diagnostics for RDC and Security available now.  For those waiting for ACH, here’s why you shouldn’t delay starting with the LexAlign Security Diagnostic.

Security is crucial for all of your commercial customers but especially those doing RDC, ACH, and Wires.

This is why it’s important to get started with the LexAlign Security Diagnostic:

• LexAlign makes the expertise contained in regulatory guidance easily accessible and actionable for your customers.
• LexAlign shows them precisely where their operations deviate from what regulators require or recommend for online banking.
• LexAlign empowers your customers with actionable information and tailored resources to be the fortified frontline against fraud while automatically demonstrating proactive and effective risk management by the bank.
• LexAlign provides your customers with a security policy that regulators expect them to have.

You can obtain our solution with a simple two-page addendum to your existing FIS agreement.

Can the FIS LexAlign solution help your bank solve remote operational risk management for high-risk, highly regulated activities like RDC and ACH?

Below, please find some points to consider.

• The LexAlign solution derives directly and transparently from regulatory guidance (in the form of exam manuals, institution letters, bulletins, supervisory highlights, summaries to rule changes, etc.), so that what is measured (and risk rated) are customer operational deviations from those official expectations.
• That means, simply by using LexAlign, you demonstrate alignment with regulator expectations in how you manage customer RDC and ACH compliance.
• LexAlign diagnostic interviews and products are designed to recruit (i.e., sensitize, empower and equip) the customer as the fortified frontline or front layer in a layered security approach, recognizing that it’s the gaps in customer operations and sophistication that fraudsters are exploiting to reach deposits.  In effect, LexAlign makes that expert guidance accessible in a targeted way to the persons actually conducting the activities.
• Your LexAlign dashboard and the records that are automatically created when customers do a self-assessment are designed to demonstrate risk management, and there are embedded tools to automate (and demonstrate) follow-up remedial efforts on the data.
• By going from manual questionnaires to using LexAlign, banks have seen a completion rate increase from 30% to over 70%, while resolving audit findings and reducing staff hours on remote operational risk management by 75%.
• FIS LexAlign ACH Part 1 satisfies Nacha’s call for A New Risk Management Framework for the Era of Credit-Push Fraud, which is now the greatest source of fraud loss across payment channels.

You can obtain FIS LexAlign with a simple two-page addendum to your existing FIS agreement.  As LexAlign is a new FIS offering we recommend a demo to truly understand the capabilities.

LexAlign automatically creates the records that demonstrate remote operation risk management for any size customer portfolio.

This is what a bank told us at Emerald:

“Last year, when I had 680 RDC customers, my auditor told me that I had 680 bank branches.  We gave up trying to do on-site compliance audits years ago — it’s just not possible given the staff time it takes.  Now we have 750 RDC customers and I need a better solution.”

We hear that more and more:  Examiners and auditors are pressing banks harder on remote operation risk management for RDC, ACH and Wires, to comply with the requirements for detailed audits and training set forth in exam manuals, various institution letters, and other authoritative guidance.

Over the last few years, even as fraud related to customer ACH, Wires and RDC has exploded, FIS has incubated a solution that automates the onsite audit function in the form of an online diagnostic interview.  It’s called LexAlign. The solution takes your customer through an intuitive but powerful self assessment of their operations, knowledge, practices and future plans.  Your customers instantly get a detailed, customized audit report containing a Gap Analysis and Action Plan to empower them with knowledge on how to remediate their gaps in line with regulators’ stated expectations.  They also get a Policy Packet with materials to train their staff and keep records.  Your Treasury staff get a dashboard with a centralized console showing where the risk exists across their customer portfolio, including which customers present the most risk to your institution.

You can obtain FIS LexAlign with a simple two-page addendum to your existing FIS agreement.  As LexAlign is a new FIS offering we recommend a demo to truly understand the capabilities.

Empowering your commercial customers to prevent Credit-Push Fraud.

Credit-Push Fraud results when a sophisticated criminal enterprise takes over your customer’s account or deceives them via business email compromise or other social engineering into sending funds to a fraudulent account.

Nacha has called this the now dominant form of fraud across payment channels and is pushing urgently for a New Risk Management Framework for the Era of Credit-Push Fraud.  It says:

“Effective end-user education will require new and innovative ways to reach the end users of the payment system. Working together within and beyond the ACH community, participants in the payment system all have roles to play in combatting fraud. “

Like nothing before it, LexAlign uniquely responds to this call by effectively making the customer part of the risk management framework.

LexAlign does this by recruiting the customer to be the front layer in the layered security approach expected by regulators by:

• Sensitizing the customer to their vulnerabilities & responsibilities
• Empowering them with targeted & actionable guidance and
• Providing them with the foundation for a risk management program.

LexAlign also makes it possible for your staff to do Remote Operations Risk Management that is proactive, targeted, demonstrable and efficient.

In particular, LexAlign’s Security Diagnostic addresses the precise vulnerabilities that the criminal enterprises are exploiting: gaps in the customer’s operations, security, training, and sophistication.

LexAlign is designed to be an essential part of the new risk management framework Nacha is calling for.

As an FIS partner, you can obtain LexAlign with a simple two-page addendum to your existing FIS agreement.  As LexAlign is a new FIS offering we recommend a demo to fully understand the capabilities.

It’s new, it’s different, and it’s never been done before.

This week we focus on the importance of how crucial a demo is to understand what LexAlign can do for you.  As with most things new, it’s hard to really understand until you see it for yourself.

As an example, we demoed to the COO of a Bank earlier this year.  She said that she didn’t understand the marketing materials until she saw the demo.  She also said the examiners “were in her house” as we spoke.  She then thanked us for being persistent in getting her to see a demo.  They are launching LexAlign this month.

LexAlign automates the onsite compliance audit function.  This is something you probably have not contemplated as possible so you are operating in a manual compliance audit world with its enormously costly efforts that can only reach a subset of your customers, even as the losses from fraud and costly mistakes continue to surge.

LexAlign automates laborious expert processes, enabling you to reach all of your customers, avoid an auditor/examiner finding, reduce losses from fraud and mistakes, refocus your time on growth rather than compliance, and boost your non-interest income. Yes, all those things!

Customers are far more forthcoming in revealing pertinent concerns to LexAlign than they are directly to their bank.

For example, we’ve heard from many treasury managers that customers are less likely to report concerns about their scanners than they are to switch banks.  In the LexAlign RDC Diagnostic, customers are asked specific questions about scanner functionality.  When relevant, the system delves deeper.  We find that customers readily report device concerns when completing a LexAlign Diagnostic.

Because on average 75% of customers complete their LexAlign Diagnostic, it’s not uncommon for the bank to discover 20% or more of their customers have device issues.  By generating a report listing the customers and their specific device concerns, banks that use LexAlign can proactively address those issues, preserve the relationship, and realize higher average deposit volumes.    

With LexAlign, you can have more meaningful and impactful conversations with your customers.

LexAlign enables greater trust and a more fruitful relationship with customers by furnishing you with rich data about their operations, sophistication, and thoughts about the future, all of which you can use to foster a deeper relationship.  With LexAlign, you can:

• proactively approach customers that signaled attrition risk via LexAlign, to discuss their banking needs
• determine which customers are trying to use scanners provided by a different bank
• increase average deposit volumes by addressing very common (but otherwise hidden) device issues
• demonstrably reduce the risk of credit-push fraud, 
• forecast deposit activity over the next year, and
• grow your customer base significantly without the need for additional headcount/resources for risk.

Dear FIS Team,

The purpose of today’s communication is to describe the best target banks for the LexAlign solution to help you close business this year.  We find that clients that fit one or more of these profiles tend to close faster and are less price sensitive. If any of your clients fit the description below, LexAlign can help them.

LexAlign Bank Targets

• Auditor/Regulator Finding:  The bank has had regulatory or audit findings for inadequate remote operations risk management (in particular, relating to RDC, ACH or Wires, or related fraud) and needs to respond quickly.
• Rapid Growth in their Treasury Account Base:  Banks facing a merger or other rapid growth in their treasury account base.  Such banks confront the non-scalability of legacy manual processes most acutely.  A LexAlign client contending with a threefold increase in RDC customer count due to a merger recently said “it would have been a nightmare without LexAlign.”
• Banks Facing Heightened Regulatory Oversight:  Banks can face growing regulatory oversight for a number of reasons.
  • Banks at or nearing the $10B in assets threshold.
  • Banks engaged in BaaS or other perceived high-risk activities.
  • Community banks growing into Regional banks.
  • Banks moving from a State to a Federal charter.

  Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.

  Learn More

  If you would like to learn more about the LexAlign solution, please visit https://lexalign.com/fis

Dear FIS Team,

We’ve enjoyed working with many of you this year to help FIS clients realize the many benefits of the LexAlign solution.  We wanted to say THANK YOU!  We appreciate your support.  The purpose of this communication is to share information and updates about LexAlign.

About the FIS/LexAlign Partnership

FIS has a reseller agreement with LexAlign.  FIS sells, implements & supports the LexAlign solution.  FIS gets top line revenue.  We have reference clients including HRZ client Provident Bank ($14B) and we are in the process of implementing the first client sold on FIS paper, IBS client Forbright Bank ($6B).  Core agnostic, available for all FIS clients, and no integration is required.  Adding LexAlign is just a two page addendum to the client’s existing FIS agreement.  Your go-to FIS person about the LexAlign relationship is Bob Turner.

About the LexAlign Solution

LexAlign solves remote operations risk management.  We automate and enhance the process most treasury departments go through for their annual customer compliance audits for remote check deposits, ACH, and Wires.

As we heard unanimously at Emerald, if your clients are growing their commercial customer base and relying on legacy manual processes, it is only a matter of time before they’re cited for inadequate risk management.

LexAlign automates the onsite audit function using sophisticated diagnostic assessments—not one-size-fits-all questionnaires.  When a customer completes the LexAlign diagnostic assessments, they have immediate access to an audit report with gap analysis and action plan that identifies their risk factors and how to remediate them.  And the bank gets visibility into their commercial customers activities as well as the records that demonstrate risk management.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.

Learn More

If you would like to learn more about the LexAlign solution, please visit https://lexalign.com/fis

Dear FIS Team,

As many of you know, the LexAlign solution automates the onsite audit function for banks’ commercial customers that use treasury products like remote check deposits, ACH, and Wires.

Sounds simple but what does this mean?   Great question, thanks for asking.

As Tracey Jackson, SVP Treasury Services Manager at Southern Bank & Trust said “Last year, when I had 680 RDC customers, my auditor told me that I had 680 bank branches.  We gave up trying to do on-site compliance audits years ago—it’s just not possible given the staff time it takes.  Now we have 750 RDC customers and I need a better solution.”

Regulators hold the bank responsible for ensuring their customers comply with regulatory guidelines covering security, RDC, ACH, and Wire processes.  If your client hasn’t yet been cited, it could happen at the next audit, as FFIEC expectations are rising to confront exploding fraud.

Performing audits at customer sites is just not feasible at scale given the related costs.  There is growing recognition that using one-size-fits-all questionnaires is also incredibly laborious and largely ineffective. Why is this?

The bank customer sees no value in returning the questionnaire as there is nothing in it for them.  So, while their banking agreement requires the completion of annual audits, they have little motivation, and almost no jeopardy when they don’t do them.

Why is this important? Another great question!

Despite the efforts of the bank:

• Fraud continues to rise exponentially as fraudsters target the gaps in customer operations and sophistication.
• Fraudsters no longer need to break into the bank, they just manipulate the customer to get access to their deposit accounts.
• The bank is left with the dismal choice of reimbursing their customers’ fraud losses or risking lawsuits and serious reputational harm.

So, how does LexAlign help?

By automating the on-site audit function and providing immediate value for the bank customer, the LexAlign solution is able to attain a greater than 70% assessment completion rate.  The LexAlign assessment is a great online experience for the customer.   Not only is it an intuitive user interface but the customer gets real value by completing the assessments.

Banks get access to a dashboard that gives them visibility into the activities of their customers while providing the records that demonstrate risk management—exactly what the regulators are looking for.  By using the LexAlign solution, banks can lower their costs, improve their operational efficiency ratios, and provide the records regulators expect.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.

Learn More

If you would like to learn more about the LexAlign solution, please visit https://lexalign.com/fis

Dear FIS Team,

In past communications we’ve been talking about how LexAlign automates the onsite audit function for banks’ treasury customers doing high-risk, highly regulated activities like remote check deposits, ACH, and Wires.

Today we’d like to discuss how LexAlign uniquely addresses this trend:  Fraudsters are exploiting security gaps in banks’ commercial customer operations to access their deposit accounts.  It’s called “credit-push fraud” and it’s exploding.

LexAlign is designed to recruit bank customers to be the front layer in their layered security approach against fraud.  After all, as Jane Larimer, President and CEO of Nacha said:

“All participants in the payment system, whether the ACH Network or elsewhere, have roles to play in working together to combat fraud.”

We recently met with Nacha’s senior network risk officer to discuss the scope of our forthcoming ACH Diagnostic and demoed our Security Diagnostic as it’s directly on point and responsive to Nacha’s call for A New Risk Management Framework for the Era of Credit-Push Fraud, which they say is now the greatest source of fraud loss across payment channels.

The LexAlign Security Diagnostic meets that call.

Credit-push fraud works with startling success because customers have unaddressed vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to business email compromise and account takeover.  LexAlign sensitizes them to the risks and responsibilities, alerts them to their particular vulnerabilities, and equips them in a uniquely effective way to improve their security and staff awareness, while automatically providing the bank with records demonstrating superior oversight and support in alignment with regulators’ stated expectations.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.

You can always learn more about LexAlign here:  https://lexalign.com/fis

Dear FIS Team,

For this week’s communication, we want to focus on cost.

LexAlign comes with a cost—that probably goes without saying. 

However, it replaces expensive labor and related costs that banks are  facing with their manual customer compliance audit processes.

Provident Bank, a LexAlign client, not only resolved an audit finding but reduced their labor costs by 75%.  This allowed them to reassign an expensive resource to focus on growing their business.

LexAlign developed a calculator to help banks understand the cost of their current operations. 

Feel free to share it with your clients.  You can find it here:  https://lexalign.com/fis

With LexAlign, banks can align growth with their risk management.  Resolving the historic battle they’ve had with funding resources to perform a manual process that has been largely ineffective.  LexAlign enables growth.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients. 

Dear FIS Team,

This week we focus on the importance of how crucial a demo is to jump start a sale.  Universally we find that banks don’t get what LexAlign does until they see it.  How LexAlign automates complex expert tasks is seemingly something they haven’t contemplated as possible. You’ve got to get them to see it to believe it.

As an example, we demoed to the COO of Forbright Bank earlier this year.  She said that she didn’t understand the marketing materials until she saw the demo.  She also said the examiners “were in her house” as we spoke.  She then thanked the SDR for being persistent in getting her to see a demo.  Forbright is launching LexAlign this month.

LexAlign automates the onsite compliance audit function, something few believe is possible.  Because your clients don’t contemplate this possibility, they are stuck in the mindset of a manual compliance audit world. 

That means enormously costly efforts that can only reach a subset of their customers, even as the losses from fraud and costly mistakes continue to surge.

When you describe LexAlign to your clients, they often equate it to something they are doing.  As a result, they might view it as superfluous because they believe they are already doing everything they can to manage their compliance audit process.

We need to expand their view of what is possible, that such laborious expert processes can be automated, enabling them to reach all of their customers, avoid an auditor/examiner finding, reduce losses from fraud and mistakes, refocus their time on growth rather than compliance, and boost their non-interest income. Yes, all those things!

The key is getting them to see a demo.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.

Dear FIS Team,

Today we cover how the LexAlign data enables your clients to have more meaningful conversations with their treasury customers.

We’re often asked about the benefits of using the LexAlign solution.  We’ve previously discussed some of these like improving operational efficiency ratios and freeing the bank’s staff to focus on growing the business instead of spending all of their time on customer compliance.  Today, we focus on yet another benefit—the ability for the bank to have more meaningful customer conversations.

What do we mean?

By using LexAlign, relationship managers at the bank would know more about their customers in advance, including where they need help on operational gaps and their thoughts on future volumes.  This allows them to have deeper conversations/business development opportunities, and ultimately show their customers that they care about their wellbeing.  The data provided by the LexAlign solution enables them to:

• proactively approach customers that signaled attrition risk via LexAlign, to discuss their banking needs
• determine which customers are trying to use scanners provided by a different bank
• increase average deposit volumes by addressing very common (but otherwise hidden) device issues
• demonstrably reduce the risk of credit-push fraud, 
• forecast deposit activity over the next year, and
• grow their customer base significantly without the need for additional headcount/resources for risk.

Please let us know if you would like to arrange a LexAlign demo for any of your clients.