The American Bankers Association on Wednesday launched a new online platform to help member banks more easily verify government checks and their payee information. The service creates a centralized point of access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s existing Treasury Check Verification System (TCVS). The new ABA-supported service arrives as financial institutions grapple with increasing check fraud. Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable or altered compared to electronic funds transfer, according to the White House. The ABA designed this new tool to help member banks directly combat this elevated risk. “We’re excited to offer this new tool in the banking industry’s ongoing fight against fraud, and we appreciate the Treasury Department’s support for this new platform,” said Rob Nichols, ABA President and CEO. “Banks accessing the TCVS through ABA will be able to spot potentially fraudulent government checks in real-time, which will help protect taxpayers, banks and the federal government from millions in fraud losses.” The new ABA platform offers a key enhancement: the ability to confirm payee name, a feature not available through the U.S. Treasury’s public-facing TCVS page. Banks traditionally accessed payee name validation only through the U.S. Fiscal Service’s secure TCVS API, which requires financial institutions to build a direct connection and integrate it into their systems, a process that can take months. The ABA’s new platform bypasses this complex direct API integration, offering payee validation without the need for banks to develop their own API integrations.