When we receive a request for a stop payment, we put it on the system. And, if we do not get a signed stop payment form within 14 days, the details of the stop payment are deleted and the item will be paid if it is presented.

A couple of questions:
- are we required to obtain a signature on a stop payment request in order to keep it valid (on checks) for 6 months?
- When customers log into our digital banking platform to request the stop payment, do we need a signed form or is their 2FA logging into Digital banking enough?
- As we review this process and signature requirements, what do we need to be careful of in the differences between check stop payments and ACH stops?

thanks!

In most states (Texas is an exception), the UCC provision in section 4-403 says something like "(b) A stop-payment order is effective for six (6) months, but it lapses after fourteen (14) calendar days if the original order was oral and was not confirmed in a record within that period. A stop-payment order may be renewed for additional six-month periods by a record given to the bank within a period during which the stop-payment order is effective." [Section 4-403(b) of Oklahoma's UCC].

Note that the 14-day lapse only applies to an oral stop payment order. Oral, as in spoken, perhaps in person or by phone or video call. The 14 day provision would not apply if the stop order is made by the customer using a smartphone banking app or the bank's online banking app, because such orders are not oral. The produce a record.

And then there is the provision that the UCC gives the parties the ability to alter the provisions of the UCC by agreement. Your bank could simply state that all stop payment orders, including those placed orally, are effective for 6 months unless the stop order is canceled by the customer. You could do that by making that statement in your banking app or online banking portal stop payment input page.

Or, for that matter, you could, by providing an appropriate notice, make stop orders effective for a year (or some other term).

Stop payments on EFT debits to consumer accounts have no expiration date (because Regulation E does not provide for an expiration of stop orders and Nacha rules indicate that stops on a consumer account are effective until canceled by the consumer or until all debit entries subject to the stop have been returned unpaid.