In the oil and gas industry, automated clearing house (ACH) fraud and change-of-bank scams create real exposure on both sides of a royalty payment. For operators, a fraudulent account update can mean sending funds to the wrong place — and recovering misdirected payments is rarely simple. For royalty owners and payees, it can mean having their payments stolen entirely.
One fraudulent routing number. One intercepted request. The damage is real, and it happens fast. Identity verification is the first line of defense — and we’ve made it stronger.
Enverus EnergyLink® now includes government ID verification in its identity verification process for operators processing ACH transactions and bank account changes. Here’s what’s changed, why it matters, and what you can expect.
Why identity verification matters in royalty payments
ACH fraud is a known and growing risk in oil and gas. Fraudsters impersonate royalty owners, suppliers, or other payees and submit falsified bank account update requests. If those requests aren’t properly verified, payments get rerouted — and recovering misdirected funds is rarely straightforward.
Operators carry the bulk of the responsibility here. As senders, you’re the ones initiating and authorizing payments on behalf of thousands of payees. The strength of your verification process is what stands between a legitimate account update and a fraudulent one. That’s a real burden, and it deserves a real solution.
How verification worked before: KBA
Historically, EnergyLink® has used Knowledge-Based Authentication as its identity verification method. KBA works by presenting the person being verified with a short set of questions drawn from public and semi-public records — things like previous addresses, prior loan amounts, or known associates. If the answers match, identity is confirmed.
KBA is a well-established standard, and it works. But it has real limitations. People with thin credit histories or limited U.S. records can struggle to pass it. And in some cases, answers to KBA questions aren’t as private as they should be — family members, former business partners, or bad actors with access to the right data can potentially answer them correctly.
KBA verifies what someone knows. It doesn’t verify who they are.
What’s new: Government ID verification
Government ID verification closes that gap. Instead of relying solely on answers to knowledge-based questions, EnergyLink® now also asks the person being verified to submit a government-issued photo ID — a driver’s license, passport, or equivalent document. That ID is then validated using forensic checks: document authenticity, expiration, and consistency between the ID and other verification signals.
This adds another layer to EnergyLink®’s existing security framework, which already includes multi-factor authentication (MFA) and KBA. KBA confirms what someone knows. Government ID confirms who they are. Together, they’re meaningfully harder to defeat than either method alone.
For operators, this means more confidence that the person updating a bank account actually is who they say they are. For royalty owners and other payees, it means a verification process that’s more accessible — particularly for those who’ve had difficulty passing KBA alone — and more secure for everyone involved.
What’s coming next: Financial account ownership verification
Government ID verification is one part of a broader set of security enhancements we’re bringing to EnergyLink®. Financial account ownership verification — which will confirm that a payee actually owns the bank account they’re providing — is the next addition and will be rolling out to customers soon.
With all three layers in place, operators will have identity verification that covers knowledge, identity, and account ownership — each offering protection the others can’t. KBA confirms what you know. Government ID confirms who you are. Financial account ownership confirms what you own. Together, they form a verification standard that’s genuinely difficult to defeat.
Questions?
If you have questions about today’s update or how identity verification works within EnergyLink®, reach out to your Enverus account representative or request a call from our team by filling out the form below.
