WASHINGTON — The American Bankers Association has launched an online platform it said will allow member banks to more easily verify government checks and their payee information through the U.S. Treasury Department’s existing Treasury Check Verification System (TCVS) for free.

According to the ABA, the new tool creates a centralized point of access to the TCVS for ABA member-banks at www.aba.com.

“The system allows banks to verify the validity of all government-issued checks including Social Security benefits, tax refunds, federal paychecks and government stimulus payments,” the ABA said in a statement.

In releasing the new solution the association cited a White House report that stated Treasury checks, or checks issued by the federal government, are 16 times more likely to be subject to fraud. 

“By using TCVS, ABA member banks can obtain check issue information and confirm a check’s legitimacy, significantly reducing the likelihood of fraud,” the ABA stated.

Additional Features

The ABA added that its new platform will also allow ABA members to confirm payee name, which is a feature not available through the Treasury’s existing public-facing page.

“By providing a centralized point of access on aba.com, ABA member-banks will no longer have to build their own TCVS payee verification capability by integrating the TCVS Application Programming Interface (API) with their own systems, a process that can take months to complete,” the association added.