With the goal of encouraging Web merchants and shoppers to use personal checks for e-tail sales, the Electronic Payments Association instituted new rules Friday for how electronic checks are processed.

"As e-commerce matures, consumers and businesses will expect to have payment choices, just as they do in the bricks-and-mortar world," said Elliott C. McEntee, president and chief executive officer of the not-for-profit association, which is also known as the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). The new rules will govern how Internet merchants accept payments by check sent through NACHA's Automated Clearing House network (ACH), the transfer system that processes approximately 32 million electronic checks a year. The rules require Web merchants accepting electronic checks sent through the ACH network to verify all account numbers and establish a secure Internet connection with online shoppers before asking for their personal bank account information. The revised procedures are expected to set a new industry standard for how e-commerce purchases are made using bank checking accounts. The new rules require Internet merchants to conduct annual audits to ensure that consumer bank account information is safe throughout -- and after -- the electronic transaction. The association is also calling on Web merchants to adopt "commercially reasonable" anti-fraud measures. McEntee said the new rules "address the unique environment of the Internet" and provide for an electronic payment system that meets the "safety and soundness requirements of the payments system." The ACH network is the transfer system that clears most of the electronic payments sent between banks and other financial institutions in the United States. In addition to the clearinghouse network itself, the Federal Reserve, the Electronic Payments Network and Visa act as ACH Operators -- or central clearing facilities -- through which financial institutions transmit or receive ACH entries. NACHA represents more than 12,000 financial institutions in the United States.