Payee match positive pay banking

A bank check processing system for verifying a payee name on an issued check before disbursing funds to the payee, the system comprising:

• an image retrieve module retrieving a scanned check image of the issued check;
• a file retrieve module retrieving an issued check file from the issuer of the issued check, the issued check file having a list of check records with each check record including a check identifier and a check payee name;
• a payee name verify module, responsive to the scanned check image of the issued check and a check record for the issued check from the issued check file, matching a scanned payee name from the scanned check image of the issued check against a check payee name from the check record of the issued check in order to indicate whether or not the scanned payee name is verified;
• and
• a disburse module, in response to payee name verify module, disbursing funds to the payee if the scanned payee name is the same name as the check payee name.

Apparatus for positive-pay verifying an issued check in a bank check processing system comprising:

• retrieve means for retrieving, based on a bank account number and a check number, a record payee name from an issued check file listing checks issued by a payer of the issued check;
• compare means responsive to said retrieve means for comparing a payee name from the issued check against a vocabulary of record payee names, the vocabulary including at least the record payee name and record payee name variations based on the record payee name;
• and
• said compare means for verifying the payee name based on the similarity between the payee name on the issued check and a payee name from the vocabulary of payee names.

A computer program product readable by a bank computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process for positive pay verification of issued checks, said computer process comprising:

• locating a payee name field on the issued check and parsing a payee name from the payee name field to generate an issued check payee name;
• getting from an issued check file, listing checks issued by a payer of the issued check, a record payee name for the issued check;
• and
• reading the issued check payee name by matching the issued check payee name field against a lexicon of payee names based on the record payee name;
• and verifying the issued check payee name when there is a high confidence match between the issued check payee name and a payee name in the lexicon.