Are bank is about to implement a tolerance on de minimus overdraft amounts based on an end-of-day balance of $5.00. Our bank is not an FDIC regulated bank (OCC)but want to implement this as a courtesy to our customers. My question is do most banks that have this threshold set for all consumer accounts or only those in an automated overdraft program? The FDIC guidance appears clear that the guidance does not cover returned NSF items so it would appear that we do not have to cover checks that are returned that are not covered by our automated ODP program. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

You don't HAVE to do anything to conform to the FDIC guidance if your bank is supervised by the OCC. So if you want to adopt some parts of it, you have the luxury of "cherry-picking" from the guidance document.

What is everyone else doing for the de minimus amount?

I think the $10 example the FDIC gave is a bit high. How does a $10 de minimus correlate to the $28 cup of coffee example they are always throwing out? I don't go to Starbucks but I assume even their drnks are not over $10.

Plus, doesn't setting a high de minimus amount just encourage people to not review their balance and overdraw their account? I thought the whole point of this guidance idea was to discourage people from overdrawing their account (Okay, rant over.)

De minimis is what you make it. It's very much related to the new credit card prohibition (not guidance) against charging a $35 late fee if the minimum payment amount was only $10. You only have to CONSIDER not charging for de minimis overdrafts; you could also tweak your OD fee schedule if you have the system capability to do something like:

• Not charging an overdraft fee for any item less than $5.00, regardless of the closing balance in the account.
• Not charging an overdraft fee if the closing balance of the account is overdrawn by less than $25.00 (or some other amount).
• A combination of first two bullets
• A per item overdraft fee that is the lesser of $30 or the amount of the item.