Nacha Announces Relish is a Nacha Preferred Partner for Account Validation, Fraud Monitoring, and Risk and Fraud Prevention

Nacha has named Relish a Nacha Preferred Partner in the categories of Account Validation, Fraud Monitoring, and Risk and Fraud Prevention, positioning Relish as one of the vendors Nacha highlights for helping originators meet its new 2026 fraud‑monitoring expectations.

Key points from the announcement

• Nacha announced the Relish partnership from Reston, Virginia, confirming Relish’s designation as a Preferred Partner for Account Validation, Fraud Monitoring, and Risk and Fraud Prevention.

• Nacha ties this move to its broader push to reduce credit‑push frauds, including business email compromise (BEC) and vendor impersonation, across the ACH Network.

• As a Preferred Partner, Relish is presented as supporting participants’ compliance with Nacha’s 2026 rules that raise the bar for risk‑based fraud monitoring and real‑time account validation.

What Relish provides

• Relish offers real‑time bank account validation, confirming account existence, ownership, and active status before an ACH payment is initiated.

• The platform embeds AI‑driven automation, continuous monitoring, and defensible audit trails into enterprise payment workflows, with the goal of eliminating payment fraud and improving data integrity.

• By validating account details at origination, Relish aims to reduce ACH return rates, prevent misdirected payments, and intercept fraud schemes such as BEC and vendor impersonation ahead of submission to the ACH Network.

Context: Nacha’s Preferred Partner program and 2026 rules

• Nacha’s Preferred Partner Program recognizes technology providers whose solutions align with its strategy of advancing and securing the ACH Network (e.g., account validation, ACH experience, fraud monitoring, open banking).

• The 2026 Nacha fraud‑monitoring amendments expand expectations beyond traditional WEB debits, requiring ongoing, risk‑based monitoring programs tailored to participant size, role, and risk profile.

• These rules explicitly address modern fraud typologies (false pretenses, vendor impersonation, BEC) and anticipate annual control reviews, making preferred partners like Relish part of the ecosystem Nacha points to for achieving compliance.

Practical implications for FIs and corporates

• Originators and third‑party senders will need stronger, upfront account validation and ongoing payment‑pattern monitoring to satisfy Nacha’s “commercially reasonable” fraud‑detection expectations under the 2026 amendments.

• Using solutions such as Relish can support internal control frameworks (and SOX‑adjacent expectations in public companies) by documenting real‑time validation and monitoring as part of a defensible payment approval process.

• For AR/AP and treasury teams, this kind of tooling is especially relevant to supplier onboarding, vendor‑bank‑change workflows, and high‑value credit‑push payments, where BEC and impersonation risk is concentrated.

Would it be most useful if I map this announcement specifically to your 2026 Nacha fraud‑monitoring implementation plan, or are you looking to benchmark Relish against other Nacha Preferred Partners like Trustpair and Visa?