Most Popular Compliance Content
Reasonable Cause Holds
02/04/2024
We are a small community bank that maintains strong connections with our customer base. From time to time, a customer we know well brings us a check for deposit that's accompanied by a seemingly legitimate backstory. But the appearance of the check, based on our experience leads us to believe that the check may not be paid because not ALL of the boxes can be checked to rule out that that it's a fraudulent check. Knowing our customers we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt by accepting the check for deposit and placing a Reasonable Cause hold for 4-5 days. Our acceptance of the check is done in good faith that our customer's story is legitimate and our Reasonable Cause hold is done as a means of ensuring that our customer doesn't end up on the wrong side of a scam. I have read several opinions which state the ONLY course of action that's entirely compliant is to refuse to accept the check for deposit. Most opinions are that we simply cannot place a hold for Reasonable Cause to Doubt Collectibility in this situation. Even after completing due diligence on the check and the facts offered by the customer, by refusing a check where some facts indicate authenticity and others indicate potential fraud, why would we not be allowed to try in good faith to accept the check, while protecting our customer from potential loss by way of a Reasonable Cause hold? After all, the teller has formed a "well grounded belief that the check MIGHT not be paid," but is also acting in good faith on behalf--and in favor--of our customer. We are all advocates for our customers, and simply refusing to accept a check for deposit simply because we couldn't check off EVERY box that it isn't a fraudulent check, seems counterintuitive to the consumer-favoring language of Reg CC.
Adding PODs on Joint Accounts
01/28/2024
When a customer has joint account and only one person on the account wants to add a beneficiary to the account, can this be done or must each accountholder agree?
Conductor Information for Aggregate CTRs
01/28/2024
We have a business customer whose deposit runners are refusing to provide their information for us to collect as conductors of cash transactions. These are typically smaller transactions, but we require a conductors information on all cash transactions over $1,000 for aggregation reporting purposes. They previously banked at a larger regional bank which did not require these runners to provide identifying information. Are we OK to make an exception for this business client unless it is a CTR reportable transaction?
Using a EIN on a personal account
01/28/2024
We have a customer that is an agent for one of the local insurance companies. She wants to open an account in her name only using the insurance company EIN, can we do that?
Incentive Progarms and Trust Account Investments
01/21/2024
We recently inquired if we could use self-deposit investments where the bank is acting as Trustee. We have received a legal opinion stating that we can use self-deposit investments so long as we document our due diligence, the trust allows for the investment, and our Money Market Account (MMA) is a competitive rate. We are currently discussing a referral incentive program which would include our Trust Division. I have read a lot of guidance between FDIC, OCC, and FRB, but I am not seeing anything that speaks to my particular situation. Can a Trust Officer use a self-deposit investment as Trustee and still receive a referral incentive for this transaction? I personally feel like this is a conflict of interest and somewhat, self-dealing. However, I am not seeing anything stating this would be an issue per se. I am only running into nonretail deposit and broker/dealer requirements. I have also looked through Arkansas code (our state) and I could not see anything that spoke on this particular situation. If you have any insight or could point me in the right direction to help confirm or rebuttal my though process, I would really appreciate it!