NACHA Proposes Rules To Improve ACH Network Quality

Payment Systems NACHA

On November 12, NACHA, which manages the development, administration, and governance of the ACH network, released two proposed rules that it describes as complementary approaches to improving ACH Network quality by reducing the incidence of exceptions. The first proposal would improve NACHA’s ability to identify and enforce rules against “outlier” originators by: (i) reducing the existing return rate threshold for unauthorized debits from 1% to 0.5%; (ii) establishing a 3% return rate threshold for account data quality returns, and an overall debit return rate threshold of 15%; (iii) clarifying permissible and impermissible practices for the collection of ACH debits returned for insufficient funds and other reasons; and (iv) explicitly applying certain risk management rules to third-party senders. In addition, the proposed rule would expand NACHA’s authority to initiate enforcement proceedings for a potential violation of the NACHA Rules related to unauthorized transactions. The second proposal would establish economic incentives for originating institutions and their originators to improve origination quality, and provide partial cost-recovery to receiving institutions for handling exceptions. Specifically, the rule would apply fees when: (i) the proposed economic incentives are fees that would be applied to instances when a receiving institution; (ii) returns an ACH transaction due to incorrect account data within the transaction; (iii) corrects information within an ACH transaction and sends the correction back; or (iv) returns an ACH transaction due to a problem with the receiver's authorization. NACHA is accepting comments on the proposals until Monday, January 13, 2014.