Mary Beth Guard is one of the four co-founders of BankersOnline and is now Editor Emeritus, after more than 16 years of serving as Executive Editor. She was instrumental in the creation and expansion of BankersOnline, as well as the launch more than a decade ago of BOL Conferences, Inc. and its continued operation and growth. Mary Beth is also the director of BankCompliance.com, the subscription-based compliance service now being offered online. Also, Mary Beth serves as CEO of Glia Group, Inc., which produces BOL Learning Connect. For nearly four decades, Mary Beth has utilized her background as an attorney to focus on banking industry issues, first as general counsel for the Oklahoma State Banking Department, then as general counsel for the Oklahoma Bankers Association, prior to her work with BankersOnline.
Mary Beth has presented training programs for virtually every major national financial industry association, as well as more than a dozen state bankers associations and a host of other organizations. She is a frequent presenter of webinars and seminars. In addition, Mary Beth has written more than a thousand banking-related articles and is BOL Guru #1.
You can contact Mary Beth via email at mbguard@bankersonline.com or by telephone at (405) 272-1642.
08/06/2001
Under the new privacy regulations, in the event that two banks merge, is it permissible for the acquiring bank to contact customers (prior to the merger) that have deposit accounts at both banks, where the aggregate balance of the dualcustomer's combined depository accounts will/may exceed FDIC insurance coverage, to inform them of their options regarding FDIC insurance? This process will require the acquiring bank to use nonpublic information from the target bank.
07/09/2001
Can you point us to some resources that we can use to help our customers protect themselves, or even deal with the aftermath of fraud committed against them?
07/09/2001
We have an elderly customer who has a caregiver. One of the duties of the caregiver is to help the customer write checks for monthly bills. Recently, we've been concerned that the caregiver is perhaps helping herself, rather than helping the customer, because some of the checks are larger than normal and others are made out to payees that would be unusual for our depositor. We've tried talking with the customer, because we're alarmed at her rapidly decreasing balance, but she does not appear to be able or willing to stop the misuse of her funds. The customer has signed each item, but we still feel awful paying them because we believe she's being taken advantage of.The customer's grown children live out of state. We're tempted to call one of them to discuss the situation, but we can't do so because of financial privacy constraints. Any other suggestions?
07/02/2001
We need to have a short list on when we can deny opening a deposit account. We know about the consumer reporting requirements but, sometimes there are events that caution us to withhold deposit account service.
07/02/2001
One of our CSRs has heard that a next of kin can withdrawn $1500 from an account they do not sign on to payfuneral expenses for the account holder. This is without court papers. Is this true?
06/04/2001
Please help with Reg P concerning delivery of privacy notice. Subsection 40.9(b)(1)(iv)talks about isolated transactions at ATMs. I know I have to be reading it incorrectly. It states we must post the notice on the ATM screen and require the consumer to acknowledge receipt as a necessary stop to obtaining the service. Please advise.
06/04/2001
If an employee gives two weeks' notice when he resigns, as required by the employer's personnel manual, and the employer tells the employee to leave immediately, is the employer required to pay the employee for the two weeks since two weeks notice were required by the employer and the employee complied with the requirement?
06/04/2001
We allow our customers to complete a change of address form in the secure area of our online banking site. Do we also need to have a signed change of address form in addition to the customer making the request to change their address from the secure (password required) section of our online banking site?
05/07/2001
We have had many discussions concerning keys to our branches. What is the recommended procedure for employee keys and key logs? Who should have access to the bank on a 24 hour basis and what procedures should we implement to know who has the keys?
05/07/2001
Could you please provide information regarding IOLTA and IRETA accounts. When to open, why they are opened, how to properly open, reporting to the state, what tin to use? I have little information on these account types and want to make sure we are opening and handling these accounts properly.