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 $550 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 $550 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 $550 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).
