Remittance Fraud

What it means

Remittance fraud attacks the paperwork that sits around a payment rather than the invoice alone. Criminals alter or forge remittance advice, payment instructions, or the covering note that tells a business where and how to send funds, usually swapping in bank details they control. Because a remittance often looks like an administrative afterthought, it receives less scrutiny than the invoice itself. A typical Australian example is a supplier’s accounts team receiving a “remittance advice” confirming an upcoming payment and quietly asking that it be directed to an updated account, or a payer acting on altered payment instructions attached to an otherwise genuine invoice.

Why it matters for Australian finance teams

The danger is that remittance documents are trusted precisely because they seem routine and low stakes. A single altered instruction can divert a large scheduled payment, and false billing and payment redirection scams together account for millions in reported business losses each year to the ACCC and Scamwatch. Once the funds settle in the fraudster’s account and are withdrawn, they are rarely recovered, and the legitimate supplier still expects to be paid.

How ezyshield helps

ezyshield anchors the decision to verified account ownership rather than to whatever a document says. Before money moves it confirms the person, the business through ABN and ASIC records, and that the payee owns the nominated bank account, and it re-verifies whenever those details change, so an altered remittance instruction cannot reroute funds. Every check is recorded in an append-only audit trail you can rely on in a dispute. See how it works and verify a supplier bank account in Australia.