What is Positive Pay?
Positive Pay is a powerful fraud prevention tool used by business customers to protect against check fraud. Gibsland Bank’s Positive Pay Service helps your business detect suspicious transactions, reducing the risk of financial loss and safeguarding the reputation of your business.

How does Positive Pay work?
Your business uploads a file containing issued check data into the Positive Pay system via Online Banking (OLB). Checks presented for payment against your account are compared to those issued by the business. Any check not on the issued check list (and potentially fraudulent) is sent to you as an exception for examination. The business logs in to the Positive Pay system via OLB and reviews the exception item and makes a “pay” or “return” decision for each item.

What happens if someone tries to cash a check at a Gibsland Bank & Trust (GBT) branch?
The entire GBT network is covered by Positive Pay protection. Any checks presented to a teller in a branch are compared to your company’s issued check file. If the check does not match the information in the file, GBT will contact your business for authorization to cash the check. Calls are made during normal banking hours Monday through Friday. If we cannot verify the check has been issued by your business, the teller will instruct the payee to contact your office.

How will our business be notified if there are exceptions to be processed?
You will receive notice by email if there are exceptions to be processed. The initial email is sent prior to 9:00 AM CST each banking day.

What time is the exception processing deadline?
The exception processing deadline is 10:30 AM CST.

What happens if a decision is not made to exceptions by 10:30 AM CST?
To safeguard your account, exceptions not processed by 10:30 AM CST will receive an
automatic decision of “pay” or “return”, based upon your Positive Pay Agreement with GBT.

Can multiple users access Positive Pay?
Yes. Your business will designate approved administrators of the Positive Pay service. The administrators are maintained by GBT Treasury Management department.

What file formats does GBT accept for issued check files?
The file format types that can be uploaded into the Positive Pay system are: Fixed Length, Microsoft Excel, or Delimited. These file formats may be easily extracted from your accounting or bookkeeping software.

What information is needed in the issued check file?
Only 3 pieces of the check information are needed: Check Number, Issue Date, and Amount. The issued check file may contain additional information, such as the payee name or memo, but is not required.

What if the file submitted contains items that are not checks?
If the issued check file contains other information, the system will ignore those items as long as they do not contain a Check Number, Issue Date, and Amount.

What if the wrong file is uploaded?
The bank can easily delete an incorrect file. If a file needs to be deleted, please contact the
Treasury Management Department at 318-688-7005 or [email protected].

What if a check is written after a file has been submitted?
If a check is written after a file has been submitted, you can either send a new updated file or submit the check(s) using the Add New Issued Check option. This option will allow you to enter a single check or a series of checks without having to create and upload a new file.

How can Positive Pay help with Account Reconciliation?
With Positive Pay, mismatched checks are identified sooner and account activity reconciled with increased accuracy.

How do I sign up for Positive Pay?
To sign up for Positive Pay or any of our Treasury Management Services, please contact our
Treasury Management Department at 318-688-7005 or [email protected] or visit any one of our branches during banking hours. A staff member will schedule an appointment with our Treasury Management Officer who will meet with your business to review the service and your specific needs.

What is ACH Debit Block?
Debit blocks protect your bank accounts from unauthorized electronic charges. With an ACH Block, you will have the ability to prohibit, or block, all ACH debits and/or credits from posting to your company accounts to prevent ACH fraud.

How is ACH Debit Block beneficial to my company?
We will only allow originators that you designate as an Authorized Originator to post ACH debits to account(s) that you enroll. You are solely responsible for providing us with all of the necessary and correct information to add an Authorized Originator, namely, the ACH Company ID, and we’ll not be liable for any transaction that we block or fail to block based on the information provided by you.