SECTION
229.19—Miscellaneous
A. 229.19(a) When
Funds Are Considered Deposited 1. The time
funds must be made available for withdrawal under this subpart is
determined by the day the deposit is made. This paragraph provides
rules to determine the day funds are considered deposited in various
circumstances.
2. Staffed
Facilities and ATMs Funds received
at a staffed teller station or ATM are considered deposited when received
by the teller or placed in the ATM. Funds received at a contractual
branch are considered deposited when received by a teller at the contractual
branch or deposited into a proprietary ATM of the contractual branch.
(See also the commentary to section 229.10(c) on deposits made
to an employee of the depositary bank.) Funds deposited to a deposit
box in a bank lobby that is accessible to customers only during regular
business hours generally are considered deposited when placed in the
lobby box; a bank may, however, treat deposits to lobby boxes the
same as deposits to night depositories (as provided in section 229.19(a)(3)),
provided a notice appears on the lobby box informing the customer
when such funds will be considered deposited.
3. Mail Funds mailed to the depositary bank are considered deposited on the
banking day they are received by the depositary bank. The funds are
received by the depositary bank at the time the mail is delivered
to the bank, even if it is initially delivered to a mail room, rather
than the check-processing area.
9-250.1
4. Other Facilities a. In addition
to deposits at staffed facilities, at ATMs, and by mail, funds may
be deposited at a facility such as a night depository or a lock box.
A night depository is a receptacle for receipt of deposits, typically
used by corporate depositors when the branch is closed. Funds deposited
at a night depository are considered deposited on the banking day
the deposit is removed, and the contents of the deposit are accessible
to the depositary bank for processing. For example, some businesses
deposit their funds in a locked bag at the night depository late in
the evening, and return to the bank the following day to open the
bag. Other depositors may have an agreement with their bank that the
deposit bag must be opened under the dual control of the bank and
the depositor. In these cases, the funds are considered deposited
when the customer returns to the bank and opens the deposit bag.
b. A lock box is a post office box used by a corporation
for the collection of bill payments or other check receipts. The depositary
bank generally assumes the responsibility for collecting the mail
from the lock box, processing the checks, and crediting the corporation
for the amount of the deposit. Funds deposited through a lock-box
arrangement are considered deposited on the day the deposit is removed
from the lock box and are accessible to the depositary bank for processing.
5. Certain Off-Premise ATMs A special provision is made for certain
off-premise ATMs that are not serviced daily. Funds deposited at such
an ATM are considered deposited on the day they are removed from the
ATM, if the ATM is not serviced more than two times each week. This
provision is intended to address the practices of some banks of servicing
certain remote ATMs infrequently. If a depositary bank applies this
provision with respect to an ATM, a notice must be posted at the ATM
informing depositors that funds deposited at the ATM may not be considered
deposited until a future day, in accordance with section 229.18.
9-250.2
6. Banking Day of Deposit a. This paragraph also provides that a
deposit received on a day that the depositary bank is closed, or
after the bank’s cutoff hour, may be considered made on the next banking
day. Generally, for purposes of the availability schedules of this
subpart, a bank may establish a cutoff hour of 2:00 p.m. or later
for receipt of deposits at its head office or branch offices. For
receipt of deposits at ATMs, contractual branches, or other off-premise
facilities, such as night depositories or lock boxes, the depositary
bank may establish a cutoff hour of 12:00 noon or later (either local
time of the branch or other location of the depositary bank at which
the account is maintained or local time of the ATM, contractual branch,
or other off-premise facility). The depositary bank must use the same
timing method for establishing the cutoff hour for all ATMs, contractual
branches, and other off-premise facilities used by its customers.
The choice of cutoff hour must be reflected in the bank’s internal
procedures, and the bank must inform its customers of the cutoff hour
upon request. This earlier cutoff for ATM, contractual branch, or
other off-premise deposits is intended to provide greater flexibility
in the servicing of these facilities.
b. Different cutoff hours may be established for different
types of deposits. For example, a bank may establish a 2:00 p.m. cutoff
for the receipt of check deposits, but a later cutoff for the receipt
of wire transfers. Different cutoff hours also may be established
for deposits received at different locations. For example, a different
cutoff may be established for ATM deposits than for over-the-counter
deposits, or for different teller stations at the same branch. With
the exception of the 12 noon cutoff for deposits at ATMs and off-premise
facilities, no cutoff hour for receipt of deposits for purposes of
this subpart can be established earlier than 2 p.m.
c. A bank is not required to remain open until
2:00 p.m. If a bank closes before 2:00 p.m., deposits received after
the closing may be considered received on the next banking day. Further,
as section 229.2(f) defines the term banking day as the portion
of a business day on which a bank is open to the public for substantially
all of its banking functions, a day, or a portion of a day, is not
necessarily a banking day merely because the bank is open for only
limited functions, such as keeping drive-in or walk-up teller windows
open, when the rest of the bank is closed to the public. For example,
a banking office that usually provides a full range of banking services
may close at 12:00 noon but leave a drive-in teller window open for
the limited purpose of receiving deposits and making cash withdrawals.
Under those circumstances, the bank is considered closed and may consider
deposits received after 12:00 noon as having been received on the
next banking day. The fact that a bank may reopen for substantially
all of its banking functions after 2:00 p.m., or that it continues
its back office operations throughout the day, would not affect this
result. A bank may not, however, close individual teller stations
and reopen them for next day’s business before 2:00 p.m. during a
banking day.
9-251
1. If funds must be made
available for withdrawal on a business day, the funds must be available
for withdrawal by the later of 9:00 a.m. or the time the depositary
bank’s teller facilities, including ATMs, are available for customer
account withdrawals, except under the special rule for cash withdrawals
set forth in section 229.12(d). Thus, if a bank has no ATMs and its
branch facilities are available for customer transactions beginning
at 10:00 a.m., funds must be available for customer withdrawal beginning
at 10:00 a.m. If the bank has ATMs that are available 24 hours a day,
rather than establishing 12:01 a.m. as the start of the business day,
this paragraph sets 9:00 a.m. as the start of the day with respect
to ATM withdrawals. The Board believes that this rule provides banks
with sufficient time to update their accounting systems to reflect
the available funds in customer accounts for that day.
2. The start of business is determined
by the local time of the branch or other location of the depositary
bank at which the account is maintained. For example, if funds in
a customer’s account at a West Coast bank are first made available
for withdrawal at the start of business on a given day, and the customer attempts
to withdraw the funds at an East Coast ATM, the depositary bank is
not required to make the funds available until 9:00 a.m. West Coast
time (12:00 noon East Coast time).
9-252
1. This subpart establishes the maximum hold that may be placed on
customer deposits. A depositary bank may provide availability to its
customers in a shorter time than prescribed in this subpart. A depositary
bank also may adopt different funds-availability policies for different
segments of its customer base, as long as each policy meets the schedules
in the regulation. For example, a bank may differentiate between its
corporate and consumer customers, or may adopt different policies
for its consumer customers based on whether a customer has an overdraft
line of credit associated with the account.
2. This regulation does not affect a depositary bank’s
right to accept or reject a check for deposit, to charge back the
customer’s account based on a returned check or notice of nonpayment,
or to claim a refund for any credit provided to the customer. For
example, even if a check is returned or a notice of nonpayment is
received after the time by which funds must be made available for
withdrawal in accordance with this regulation, the depositary bank
may charge back the customer’s account for the full amount of the
check. (See section 229.33(d) and commentary.)
3. Nothing in the regulation requires
a depositary bank to have facilities open for customers to make withdrawals
at specified times or on specified days. For example, even though
the special cash-withdrawal rule set forth in section 229.12(d) states
that a bank must make up to $400 available for cash withdrawals no
later than 5:00 p.m. on specific business days, if a bank does not
participate in an ATM system and does not have any teller windows
open at or after 5:00 p.m., the bank need not join an ATM system or
keep offices open. In this case, the bank complies with this rule
if the funds that are required to be available for cash withdrawal
at 5:00 p.m. on a particular day are available for withdrawal at the
start of business on the following day. Similarly, if a depositary
bank is closed for customer transactions, including ATMs, on a day
funds must be made available for withdrawal, the regulation does not
require the bank to open.
4. The special cash-withdrawal rule in the EFA Act recognizes
that the $400 that must be made available for cash withdrawal by 5:00
p.m. on the day specified in the schedule may exceed a bank’s daily
ATM cash-withdrawal limit and explicitly provides that the EFA Act
does not supersede a bank’s policy in this regard. As a result, if
a bank has a policy of limiting cash withdrawals from automated teller
machines to $250 per day, the regulation would not require that the
bank dispense $400 of the proceeds of the customer’s deposit that
must be made available for cash withdrawal on that day.
5. Even though the EFA Act clearly
provides that the bank’s ATM withdrawal limit is not superseded by
the federal availability rules on the day funds must first be made
available, the EFA Act does not specifically permit banks to limit
cash withdrawals at ATMs on subsequent days when the entire amount
of the deposit must be made available for withdrawal. The Board believes
that the rationale behind the EFA Act’s provision that a bank’s ATM
withdrawal limit is not superseded by the requirement that funds be
made available for cash withdrawal applies on subsequent days. Nothing
in the regulation prohibits a depositary bank from establishing ATM
cash-withdrawal limits that vary among customers of the bank, as long
as the limit is not dependent on the length of time funds have been
in the customer’s account (provided that the permissible hold has
expired).
6. Some small banks, particularly credit unions, due to
lack of secure facilities, keep no cash on their premises and hence
offer no cash-withdrawal capability to their customers. Other banks
limit the amount of cash on their premises due to bonding requirements
or cost factors, and consequently reserve the right to limit the amount
of cash each customer can withdraw over the counter on a given day.
For example,
some banks require advance notice for large cash withdrawals in order
to limit the amount of cash needed to be maintained on hand at any
time.
7. Nothing in the regulation is intended to prohibit a
bank from limiting the amount of cash that may be withdrawn at a staffed
teller station if the bank has a policy limiting the amount of cash
that may be withdrawn, and if that policy is applied equally to all
customers of the bank, is based on security, operating, or bonding
requirements, and is not dependent on the length of time the funds
have been in the customer’s account (as long as the permissible hold
has expired). The regulation, however, does not authorize such policies
if they are otherwise prohibited by statutory, regulatory, or common
law.
9-253
1. A depositary bank may provide
availability to its nonconsumer accounts on a calculated availability
basis. Under calculated availability, a specified percentage of funds
from check deposits may be made available to the customer on the next
business day, with the remaining percentage deferred until subsequent
days. The determination of the percentage of deposited funds that
will be made available each day is based on the customer’s typical
deposit mix as determined by a sample of the customer’s deposits.
Use of calculated availability is permitted only if, on average, the
availability terms that result from the sample are equivalent to or
more prompt than the requirements of this subpart.
9-254
1. Section 607(d) of the EFA Act (12 U.S.C. 4006(d))
provides that once funds are available for withdrawal under the EFA
Act, such funds shall not be frozen solely due to the subsequent deposit
of additional checks that are not yet available for withdrawal. This
provision of the EFA Act is designed to prevent evasion of the EFA
Act’s availability requirements.
2. This paragraph clarifies that if a customer deposits
a check in an account (as defined in section 229.2(a)), the bank may
not place a hold on any of the customer’s funds so that the funds
that are held exceed the amount of the check deposited or the total
amount of funds held are not made available for withdrawal within
the times required in this subpart. For example, if a bank places
a hold on funds in a customer’s nontransaction account, rather than
a transaction account, for deposits made to the customer’s transaction
account, the bank may place such a hold only to the extent that the
funds held do not exceed the amount of the deposit and the length
of the hold does not exceed the time periods permitted by this regulation.
3. These restrictions also apply to holds placed on funds
in a customer’s account (as defined in section 229.2(a)) if a customer
cashes a check at a bank (other than a check drawn on that bank) over
the counter. The regulation does not prohibit holds that may be placed
on other funds of the customer for checks cashed over the counter,
to the extent that the transaction does not involve a deposit to an
account. A bank may not, however, place a hold on any account when
an on-us check is cashed over the counter. On-us checks are considered
finally paid when cashed (see UCC 4-215(a)(1)). When a customer
cashes a check over the counter and the bank places a hold on an account
of the customer, the bank must give whatever notice would have been
required under sections 229.13 or 229.16 had the check been deposited
in the account.
9-255
1. The EFA Act requires
banks to take such actions as may be necessary to inform fully each
employee that performs duties subject to the EFA Act of the requirements
of the EFA Act, and to establish and maintain procedures reasonably
designed to ensure and monitor employee compliance with such requirements.
2. This paragraph requires a bank
to establish procedures to ensure compliance with these requirements
and provide these procedures to the employees responsible for carrying
them out.
9-256
1. After banks merge, there is often
a period of adjustment before their operations are consolidated. This
paragraph accommodates this adjustment period by allowing merged banks
to be treated as separate banks for purposes of this subpart for a
period of up to one year after consummation of the merger transaction,
except that a customer of any bank that is a party to the transaction
that has an established account with that bank may not be treated
as a new account
holder for any other party to the transaction for purposes of the
new-account exception of section 229.13(a), and a deposit in any branch
of the merged bank is considered deposited in the bank for purposes
of the availability schedules in accordance with section 229.19(a).
2. This rule affects the status of the combined entity
in a number of areas. For example this rule would affect when an ATM
is a proprietary ATM (§ 229.2(aa) and § 229.12(b)) and when a check
is considered drawn on a branch of the depositary bank (§ 229.10(c)(1)(vi))
3. Merger transaction is defined in section 229.2(t).
