When a Wire Goes Wrong, Who’s Responsible?

A payment request lands in your inbox, and it looks like it’s from a trusted contact. The deal is moving quickly and the instructions seem straightforward. Then the money goes to the wrong account.

In the aftermath, it’s natural to ask whether the receiving bank should have caught something. But a recent post in the Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor suggests companies may have a hard time holding a bank responsible when they aren’t that bank’s customer. The article reviews several cases where courts declined to find that banks owed a duty of care to businesses caught up in wire fraud.

There are exceptions, and the outcome depends on the facts and the law in each case. But it’s risky to count on another bank to stop a fraudulent transfer, or get the money back.

For most teams, the moment to focus on is when someone asks to change payment instructions BEFORE the wire is sent.

That request might arrive in a genuine email thread or it might come from an account that’s been compromised. Either way, it can look routine, especially when everyone is trying to keep a transaction on track. A quick call to a known contact using a trusted phone number can help confirm the change, but only if the team remembers to make that call every time.

Conduit helps investment managers build payment checks directly into their workflow. Its technical controls guide teams through established procedures, document the steps taken, and flag suspicious patterns for review which helps ensure important safeguards don’t depend on memory or informal processes.

It’s not about slowing down every payment. It’s about having a process people can rely on when a request feels familiar, the deadline is close and getting it wrong could be costly.

The courts may not always place responsibility on the receiving bank. That makes the safeguards your team controls even more important. Conduit helps make those safeguards part of the payment process and not one more thing to remember in the middle of a busy day.

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