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ARB: echeck field "nameOnAccount" 22chars too short

Hi,

 

we have currently a problem with long names where prename + surname is greater than 22 characters.

 

The ARB specification says:

 

bank > nameOnAccount : 
 - The full name of the individual associated with the bank account number

 - Up to 22 characters

 

What can I do if a customer has a longer name ? Only send the initial letter of the prename and the full surname ?

 

 

abernh
Contributor
7 REPLIES 7

If it limits it to 22 characters, it's really up to you how you want to crop it. You could, for instance, exactly fill the field by using 22 - length of last name - 1 characters of first name, if first name + last name is longer than 22.

TJPride
Expert

Isnt this field used for checkups on the bank account data validity ?

On that I have no idea. Be fairly easy to test in production mode, I would guess, but if there is in fact validation, then 22 characters obviously isn't going to be enough. Have to wait for a mod to respond on this one.

22 characters is actually the maximum length that we are able to send to the ACH processor that we connect to.  Some of our other interfaces allow you to enter more characters, but the actual authorization request is being truncated at 22. My recommendation would be to simply truncate the name yourself and pass the first 22 characters of what the customer has entered.

 

The name on the account is submitted as a part of the ACH authorization, but it is generally used as a part of the automated authorization.  It's primary uses are for transaction review, customer accounting, and possibly chargeback resolution.

Many thx.

 

Truncating to 22chars it is.

Just to be clear, is the name actually matched against the name on record, or is it not? Can any truncated form be put in and still have it work?

I actually can't answer that with complete certainty.  What I can tell you is that we do pass the nameOnAccount to the bank as a part of the ACH request.  We do not receive any kind of result that would be analagous to the AVS response we get for credit cards and it would seem that they generally are not validating it for the initial transaction.  However, there is an ACH return code corresponding to 'invalid name on account', so I assume that banks could base the approval off of the validity of the name on the account if they chose to.