When opening up an agency account how do you verify the identity of the customer when the trust officer is requesting the account to be opened? Thanks

I'm not sure I have enough information to answer your question. But let draw a picture and ask questions that will perhaps lead to the answers you are seeking.

Mary Doe has a Revocable Trust, naming ABC Bank Trustee. James Smith is the Trust officer with ABC Bank who is responsible for investing the trust assets and distributing income and the corpus in accordance with the trust document. Do I have that much correct?

If so, what type of agency acocunt is James Smith wanting to open for the trust?

If not, can you provide more information?

Well it is a trust department for a different bank coming to us to open a CD for their trust customer, it would be titled Customer Name,Agency Account, XYZ Bank, Agent. They may or may not be requiring proof of identity at this time as it is not 10/1. Can we verify identity by using the trust document papers and pulling a credit bureau report for verification of SSN and DOB? Thanks

Given the information you present, I'm going to say that your customer is the bank that is acting as agent for their trust customer. Under the preamble to the rule, "the final rule excludes from the definition of "customer" the following readily identifiable entities: a financial institution regulated by a Federal functional regulator; a bank regulated by a state bank regulator; ..."etc. So if the bank that is buying the CD on behalf of it's trust customer is state or federally regulated, they do not meet the definition of "customer" so the CIP rules do not apply.

Additionally, if the other trust is acting as trustee, they have a fiduciary duty to protect the interests of the beneficiary(ies). Trying to obtain a copy of the trust agreement from them would most likely not be successful, as that would fall under the sharing of information with non-affiliates. (BTW - The Trust Regulatory News that came out today contains an interesting article about fiduciary duties and sharing of information with affiliates and non-affiliates. It seens that the ABA and the legal scholars are taking different views. Interestingly enough the regulators and the DOL are remaining quite on the issue.)

Does anyone have anyother thoughts?