Concerned about increasing cases of non–customers cashing fraudulent checks, some banks in the Harrisburg area are now requiring non–customers to leave their thumbprint on the check so they can be traced if there is a problem.

“We believe that if people know we can identify them through some way other than a (surveillance camera) photo, they may be less willing to commit fraud,” says Rob Rutz, a spokesman for PNC Bank, which has been requiring the thumbprints for more than a year. “It’s used as a preventive tool to reduce cases of fraud not just here, but in other states.”

Rutz says the Ohio Attorney General spearheaded a pilot program there with a number of banks and a coalition of banks experimented with it in Texas before the practice spread throughout the country.

PNC only requires the thumbprint from those who cash checks at its offices even though they do not have a PNC account.

“The process only take two seconds,” Rutz says. Each teller is equipped with an ink pad containing special non–toxic ink that easily disappears from the person’s thumb but remains on the check. Those without a PNC account are asked to leave a thumbprint in the center of the check. They rub their thumb and finger together to remove the ink with no stain or residue.

The bank does not scan the thumbprint into a database or otherwise make any attempt to identify it initially. It remains on the check as the check is either returned to the account–holder who wrote it or is filed by the bank after payment. The thumbprint is referred to only if it turns out that the check was cashed fraudulently.

“We believe this action protects the bank as well as our account holders,” Rutz says. “It is being increasingly embraced by the financial services community because of increased fraud.”

Rutz says that in the year the process has been in operation, there have been only one or two instances in which a person questioned its use. After the enormity of the check fraud problem was explained to them, he says, they understood and accepted the practice. Rutz also says PNC uses the procedure to encourage people to open an account with the bank so they will not be subjected to it.

Mellon Bank is another major local bank using the thumbprint identification system with non–customers who cash checks, according to Carolyn Troxell, Vice President for Administration.

She reports that Mellon started the practice more than a year ago, also because of increasing instances of check–writing fraud.

“People understand the need and accept what we’re doing,” she says. “They see that it’s for their own protection and we haven’t had any complaints.”

Mellon uses the same type of disappearing ink (from fingers but not from checks) that PNC uses.

Not all Harrisburg–area banks are convinced that requiring thumbprints from non–customers is a necessary practice, however.

“We’ve been following the information and studies on it,” says Herb Weidman, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Pennsylvania State Bank,“ but have not made any decision yet.

“As a local, community bank, we know most of our customers in the area. Also, we have access to a database that can reveal bad experiences at other banks”

Weidman said there are those in the industry who believe requiring thumbprints would be a “terrible inconvenience” to patrons and thus don’t want to use the technique.

At Financial Trust, the division of Keystone Financial that recently took over the area’s Pennsylvania National Bank branches, Chief Administrative Officer Debbie Block says that while there seems to be an increase in check fraud, especially among non–customers, the bank has made a decision not to implement the system at this time, keeping other options open.