TALL Group to Share Unique Fraud Prevention API ‘At No Charge’

In a move designed to strengthen the UK cheque industry’s protection against payment fraud, the TALL Group of Companies, the UK’s leading provider of secure electronic and paper payments solutions, has announced that it will make its unique UCN Plus® cheque fraud prevention tool available across the accredited cheque printing sector, at no charge.

UCN Plus® (pat pending) has been developed by The TALL Group in partnership with DIA Europe, providers of the Kappa cheque fraud prevention platform used by many leading clearing services providers. It enables the variable payment data – payee name, amount, date, etc – to be encrypted and hidden within a QR code printed on the face of all cheques issued by the TALL Group on behalf of its cheque bureau customers, and those customers using its well established ‘CheckPrint Solution’ software for Corporate and SME cheque issuance.

Now, other accredited cheque printing bureaus and organisations that are providing cheque services to participating banks and their customers will be able to benefit from this innovative tool with the TALL Group providing access to the UCN Plus® functionality via an API (Application Programming Interface), available for full local integration into existing cheque printing applications. This will be delivered at no cost under a licencing agreement with only additional integration support generating a charge.

Spokesperson at Lloyds Banking Group, the first of the participating banks to test and recommend the use of UCN Plus® to its corporate customers said, “The use of ISF’s (Image Survivable Features), such as the UCN Plus® is now becoming a critical factor in our ability to protect our customers from fraudulent activity, whilst ensuring the continued benefits of the faster and more efficient image clearing system, which we have now rolled out across the UK.”

Martin Ruda, Group Managing Director at the TALL Group of Companies, said; “The fundamental change to the UK cheque clearing system with the introduction of cheque imaging in October 2017 has seen more attempts of fraud, as criminals pro-actively look for opportunities in the new Image Clearing System (ICS). We developed UCN Plus® in collaboration with DIA Europe, who have extended their Kappa Fraud Prevention Tool for processing ISF’s such as the QR code of the UCN Plus® to help to ensure that counterfeit, forged and fraudulently altered cheques are robustly and automatically trapped and rejected wherever possible.
“However, we believe that the industry needs to work together to fight the challenges of cheque fraud and so we (TALL and DIA) have taken the decision to make this revolutionary unique fraud prevention tool available to all relevant organisations. We are proud to be doing our bit and are committed to helping ensure that the UK payments systems stay one step ahead of the fraudster.”