It’s called the ACH Contact Registry, but it’s being used for a whole lot more.

Under the Nacha Rules, financial institutions must enter staff or departmental contacts for ACH operations and fraud/risk management. But there’s the option to list contacts for other important areas, and you’ll find a fair number of those among the more than 38,000 contacts now in the Registry. 

Already the Registry contains more than 2,800 contacts for wires, 2,300 for checks, and more than 2,000 each for debit cards and compliance. There are also contacts for several other departments at certain banks and credit unions, including legal, credit cards and faster payments.

How convenient is that? Tammy Alana, Project Manager at Credit Union of Texas, said they use the Registry to reach other financial institutions when there are concerns—particularly about fraud—with wires.

“If we have any concerns about an incoming wire, we are going to reach out. We will also utilize it when receiving an outgoing wire request where we have concerns about the instructions,” said Alana. “If we are suspect of the outgoing wire, we will contact the FI set to receive the wire to see if they have concerns about the account on that end.”

It’s similar to what CUTX will do when it has questions about an ACH transaction.

“If we know we have an incoming ACH and we are suspect of the account, we will reach out to the ODFI to try to mitigate risk,” said Alana, noting that CUTX wants to be “a good partner” in the banking industry. The Registry, she said, makes that “so much easier.” 

“This idea of the ACH Contact Registry is one that the financial industry could have afforded sooner,” said Alana. 

Jeanette A. Fox, Nacha Senior Director, Risk Investigations & ACH Network Risk Management, noted that from the start, the Registry’s goal has been “to smooth the bumps in the road many financial institutions encountered when trying to find help at another FI regarding ACH payments.” 

“When your organization goes above and beyond by adding optional contacts, you can be certain that effort will prove worthwhile soon enough,” said Fox.

If your bank or credit union wants to enter optional contacts, you can do so at any time by going to the ACH Contact Registry, which is securely housed on Nacha’s Risk Management Portal. Information in the Registry is available only to registered FIs, Payments Associations and the two ACH Operators. 

For the mandatory information required under the Nacha Rules, the grace period to register is now over, and Nacha will be ramping up enforcement. Alana wondered why any FI wouldn’t enter its information.

“I can’t understand why there would be a delay, because it is such an important solution that we utilized out of the gate.”

Learn more about the ACH Contact Registry on the Rules section of Nacha.org.

For assistance, Nacha’s Portal support number is 703-349-4556, or you can email rmportal@nacha.org.