Success Stories

In May 2024, Treasury and the Department of Labor (DOL) announced a new data sharing partnership to provide state unemployment agencies with access to Do Not Pay (DNP) Working System data sources and services through the UI Integrity Data Hub. Maintained by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies’ UI Integrity Center, the hub is a centralized, multistate data-matching system used by state unemployment agencies to aid fraud prevention and improper payment reduction work. UI agencies in all 53 states and territories participate in the UI Integrity Data Hub.

In December 2023, Treasury was granted temporary access to the full Death Master File and this data source is now available to DNP users including state unemployment agencies.

Learn more: Departments of Labor, Treasury announce partnership to make federal fraud prevention tool available to state unemployment insurance agencies | U.S. Department of Labor (dol.gov)

In 2020, the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) partnered with Treasury’s Office of Payment Integrity to evaluate fraud concerns about Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) payments. Retrospective screenings were conducted to check for debarment and loan delinquencies or defaults.

Using Do Not Pay (DNP), the SBA OIG screened over 5 million PPP loans totaling $525 billion and 9.3 million EIDL and emergency grants totaling $190 billion and $19.7 billion. This resulted in identifying over $7.2 billion in potential improper payments. Because of this engagement, SBA has since onboarded to DNP to strengthen its loan oversight strategy and tighten fraud controls.

Since the start of 2024, buyers of eligible new and pre-owned clean vehicles can get the full value of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) clean vehicle tax credits at the time of purchase rather than waiting to claim the credit on their tax returns. To prepare for this new process, the IRS engaged OPI early on so that the proper controls were in place when registration opened. Using the Account Verification Service and cross-government data, the IRS's pre-registration process for car dealerships can now validate bank account ownership and identity of applicants.

Starting early and using OPI’s knowledge helped the IRS ensure a seamless, efficient, and accurate registration experience while preventing fraud and improper payments.

When disasters strike, FEMA needs to approve and distribute disaster assistance payments quickly while ensuring they go to the right recipients. FEMA has been working with the Office of Payment Integrity (OPI) since 2019 to develop solutions that balance speed and security in these critical situations. Now, FEMA has integrated Treasury’s payment integrity services into their payment process so they can act immediately on an event with proper controls each time.

Some examples include:

• In 2022, FEMA leveraged their partnership with OPI to prevent $44.4 million in improper payments for New Mexico wildfire aid.
• In 2023, FEMA worked with OPI to design a custom solution combining Account Verification Services, cross-government data sources, and coordination with local Hawaiian financial institutions to securely disburse $5.6 million to over 2,000 Maui residents within days of the disaster.

Check fraud has increased nationwide by 385% since March 2020.

In 2021, financial institutions filed over 350,000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to FinCEN to report potential check fraud, a 23% increase over the number of check fraud-related SARs filed in 2020. This upward trend continued into 2022, when SARs about check fraud reached over 680,000, nearly double from the previous year’s filings. Incidents of Treasury check fraud are also on the rise. To address the increase in fraud, Treasury’s Office of Payment Integrity (OPI) implemented an enhanced process using machine learning to mitigate check fraud in near real-time. The enhanced process and OPI’s strong partnership with federal law enforcement agencies have led to many active cases and arrests with law enforcement.