Introduction

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) Integrity Center (Center) has been formed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA) Office of Unemployment Insurance (OUI), the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to provide innovative tools, training, and support to state workforce agencies (SWAs) in their efforts to reduce improper payments and combat fraud. The Center’s mission is to be a go-to resource for successful UI program integrity and improper payment reduction strategies and tools, focusing particularly on the prevention, detection, and recovery of improper payments. One of the Center’s key initiatives is the development and state adoption of the UI Integrity Data Hub (IDH).

The Center is seeking to define, develop, test, and implement a centralized bank account owner validation and verification service through the IDH for SWAs to use in their efforts to prevent UI fraud and improper payments. The Account Validation Service (AVS) will serve as an additional resource and provide new indicators via the IDH output for states to review, investigate, and verify UI claimant data.

Purpose of This RFP

The Center is currently working with USDOL to establish funding to provide a centralized AVS to address the need for SWA’s to incorporate bank account owner verification into their UI claims process, leveraging the existing IDH infrastructure. As such, the Center is seeking a vendor to provide the Center with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) AVS capability.

The Center is seeking a solution that will deliver a determination of a UI Claimant’s bank account and routing number validity, and that the identity associated with a submitted UI claim matches the identity of the bank account owner/authorized signatory of the direct deposit bank account information provided (to include verification of pre-paid cards to the extent feasible). For this purpose, the Center is requesting responses from qualified vendors capable of utilizing their products and services to provide a response to the IDH to validate and verify a UI claimant’s self-attested bank account information.

Reponses must be received electronically by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on December 21, 2020 at DataHubRFP@naswa.org. Acknowledgement emails will be sent to the email address of the sender along with any additional email addresses included in the submittal.

Questions may be submitted by email up to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, December 8, 2020 at DataHubRFP@naswa.org.

AVS RFP (PDF)

AVS RFP Webinar: Tuesday December 1, 2020 2-3PM EST
Join: https://naswa.zoom.us/j/98350894647 (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) Meeting ID: 983 5089 4647

RFP Questions and Answers – updated Dec 15, 2020

AVS RFP Estimated Timeline

* The webinar is designed to afford the opportunity for offerors to formulate additional questions and provide their input/comments.

**Offeror presentations may be conducted with selected bidders determined to be within the competitive range for awards and may not include all bidders. Offeror presentations will be conducted virtually via NASWA-organized ZOOM meetings.

The Center reserves the right to invite offerors to participate in detailed discussions, clarifications to responses, and presentations/demonstrations subsequent to the proposal due date.