It’s an exciting time for Kotapay! This year we are celebrating our 30th Anniversary providing ACH processing solutions. We want to thank each of you for making this possible, for trusting us with your business and putting your faith in the Kotapay Team to deliver the payment services you need to meet your own customers’ needs.

The last few weeks have been tumultuous in the banking industry causing concern for people and businesses across the country. As the payments division of First International Bank & Trust (FIBT), a 112-year-old family-owned Community Bank, Kotapay and FIBT remain well capitalized with a strong core deposit portfolio – 85% of deposits are covered by FDIC. Kotapay and FIBT remain committed to serving strong, legitimate companies that don’t put us or our customers at risk.

Thank you for trusting in Kotapay! We look forward to serving you for another 30 years! Jim Haug Director of Kotapay

Upcoming Holiday Hours and Non-Processing Days

Please plan ahead and allow an extra day for processing if the pay date falls on a federal holiday, which can be found here. ACH transactions cannot be dated for a federal holiday (no debits or credits to an account on that date).

You Might See Us a Little More Now!

Soon, you may notice a minor change when logging into your Kotapay site. Currently, you may see the logo and colors of your software provider. This will soon be replaced with Kotapay’s logo and color scheme.

If you have a payment portal, this change does not affect your payment portal. Your customers will still see the branded payment portal matching your website.

When sending prenotes, the waiting period is four (4) banking days before submitting live transactions.

As a reminder, the Nacha rules mandate a 4 day waiting period when sending a prenote before submitting live transactions. With this rule, when a prenote and a live entry are submitted with an effective entry date that is less than 4 banking days of each other to the same account, the live entry will not be submitted to the network and will be returned as an Xcelerated Return (R97). To avoid a delay in processing, please allow a minimum of 4 banking days between the effective entry dates of the prenote and the live entry.

For example, a prenote transaction is submitted on Monday, the prenotes effective entry date would be Tuesday, and the earliest the employee could be paid would be the following Monday (4 business days after the effective entry date of the prenote).

If you have any questions about this Nacha rule, please reach out to the Risk Department. If you have questions on sending prenotes, please ask for the Operations Department.

Fraud Corner: Fraud Prevention Tips This article from Nacha discusses the importance of having a checklist approach to payment initiation in order to prevent errors and ensure successful payment processing. The author suggests creating a comprehensive checklist that includes all necessary information for each payment, such as account numbers, payment amounts, and transaction codes.

The article also emphasizes the importance of verifying information and keeping the checklist up to date. Ultimately, following a checklist approach can help businesses save time, reduce errors, and improve your overall efficiency.

CD Rates Up to 4.10% APY*

Looking for a safe way to grow your savings? A CD, or Certificate of Deposit, offers a secure investment with competitive yield.

First International Bank & Trust is currently offering a few special CD terms with great rates: 4.00% APY for 6 months* 4.05% APY for 9 months* 4.10% APY for 13 months* 3.50% APY for 25 months*

Click here to open your CD and start earning today.

*Annual Percentage Yield (APY) on these Certificates of Deposit (CD) is accurate as of 3/27/23. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice. Minimum opening deposit to earn the stated APY for any CD special account is $2,500.00. Fees could reduce earnings on this account. A penalty may be imposed for early withdrawal of funds. These offers are for consumer and non-consumer accounts and not for public funds.

Want to accept payments from your website? Add a pay now button to your website Kotapay will design and build a custom payment portal to allow you to accept credit card or ACH payments via your website. Get started!

Understanding SEC Codes -

SEC codes are a three-letter code within the Nacha file that describes the type of transaction utilizing the ACH network and the rules associated with each SEC code. It’s important that your transactions are coded correctly. As a reminder:

• When depositing to a Consumer/Individual Account, the correct SEC code is PPD
  • Transaction types include: payroll, including 1099 employees with a consumer account
• When depositing to a Company/Corporate Account, the correct SEC code is CCD
  • Transaction types include: vendor payments or tax payments

For more information, Learn more here or by watching a short video.

Nacha Rules Reminder

Supplementing Data Security Requirements (Phase 2) requires companies who send over 2 million ACH payments per year to protect account information by rendering them unreadable when stored electronically. Learn more about this rule by visiting the Nacha website.

Employee Spotlight - Addie Nohr

Addie has been with Kotapay since 2004. As a native of Fargo, she started working in high school and through her college years while graduating from North Dakota State University. Addie has worked in our Administrative and Marketing Departments. In her current position as Kotapay Marketing Coordinator, Addie is in charge of all marketing campaigns, website updates, marketing materials, newsletters, social media posts and partnership relations. When not planning the next marketing campaign, Addie enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters. Travelling, camping, children’s activities, walking and time with family and friends fills her calendar outside of the office.