In the new CIP Q&A it states:
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1. Does a bank have to provide notice to all owners of a joint account?

Yes, notice must be provided to all owners of a joint account. In addition, notice must be provided “in a manner reasonably designed to ensure that a customer is able to view the notice, or is otherwise given notice, before opening an account.” 31 C.F.R. § 103.121(b)(5)(ii). The Agencies agree that a bank may satisfy this requirement by directly providing the notice to any one accountholder of a joint account for delivery to the other owners of the account. Similarly, the bank may open a joint account using information about each of the accountholders obtained from one accountholder, acting on behalf of the other joint accountholders.
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Assume that Joint Accoutholder #1 is present. Can I provide the notice, it is posted in the lobby, to #1 (visually) or does this mean that I have to provide a notice physically that #1 can take to the other account holders?

Article by Mary Beth

This article by Mary Beth gives some good examples on the delivery of the notice. We're very conservative so we're opting to include the notice on all applications and have a brochure that can also be given to customers.

David, we have a notice placed at all new account opening locations similar to the Funds Availability Notice. Its a small notice that sits on a plastic stand. We also had a brochure made up in case the customer had a "problem" with the requirement

From Andy

David, that jumped out at me, too, as I read the FAQs. I read it to mean that we have to give a physical notice to the joint owner that is present - since it has to be "provided" so as to be "delivered" to the joint owner that is not present. I was kind of surprised by that answer.

Quote:

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Assume that Joint Accoutholder #1 is present. Can I provide the notice, it is posted in the lobby, to #1 (visually) or does this mean that I have to provide a notice physically that #1 can take to the other account holders?

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The lobby poster is adequate notice to the joint accountholder that came in, but you would need to provide a copy that that person can take to other accountholders.

Let me summarize the answers so far:
Cowboy fan pointed out 2 responses by Mary Beth and Andy. Both of them did not mention anything about having a physical notice that can be handed to customer #1 so that they can provide it to customer #2 who is not present.

Ted confirms what I think the Q&A is stating - that we have to have some type of physical notice that can be provided to customers not present.

The problem is, I haven't seen anyone do this yet. Also, the lack of responses to support this makes me wonder if this is really happening.

Can anyone confirm that you do provide a notice for the customer to take to other customers? Or, is this simply an academic question: are new account officers making all customers come in to the bank so this isn't really an issue?

We've opted to have customers come in to open new accounts for this and other reasons. Customers that can't make it in have the option of opening their account by phone or web.

Loans: CIP notice included on the application itself which must be signed by all borrowers (commercial and consumer)

Deposit: notices posted in each location where accounts are opened. Notice also included in the new account package. I don't work on the deposit side so I'm not sure if they have the notice printed on something that the account owners sign or if it is a stand alone form.

Separate brochure that can also be handed out.

Sorry the links to the articles weren't helpful - made perfect sense to me.

Dave, we are mailing a notice to any customer who is not present at account opening. It is an easy thing to include it in the information we send to the customer requesting a notarized signature on the account opening documents, etc.. We don't rely on the customer who is present to provide it to the customer not present.

We redesigned our signature cards to include the Notice. Since they have to sign the card to be on the account, they've been presented with an opportunity to view the Notice before opening the account. No need to have one signer hand-carry the notice to the other(s).

We included the notice at the top of our personal and non-personal CIP forms.

I was actually surprised by that Q&A. I kind of thought all along that that provision was put into the statute because congress (or whoever drafted that particular section) did not understand the real world in which we work. After all, why on earth should we have to notify someone that we're going to verify their identity? Why wouldn't that be assumed? Add to that the fact that for the most part we are just doing the same things we always did (just documenting it better) and we definitely had the authority before USA Patriot came along to do all the things we are now doing to verify identity.

So, up until that Q&A was issued I had the false hope that the regulators realized how silly that provision was, but being bound by the statutory language, would be satisfied as long as bank's were making some reasonable effort to compy.

GreatBlue: You described my feelings exactly. Furthering your argument, the Privacy notice doesn't have to be give to EVERY customer on the account. Why would this be any different?

What types of I.D. should be requested for POA Accounts? The Agent opened the individual account for the person for whom he has POA. This is a husband with POA for wife. She is not present and all we have is the POA. We were provided with her SSN, Date of Birth, Physical Address. I haven't found a great deal of information on POA's as far as CIP requirements.

The principal on the account (wife in your example) is who must be identified under the Regulation. Our Bank's policy requires we obtain and verify the identity of both the Principal and the attorney under the POA.

To quote another officer at my bank when it comes to certain disclosures, when it comes to the CIP notice, we "paper the walls" with the thing.

We have the CIP notice on tent cards at the New Accounts desk. We add the CIP notice to the ECOA "up front" notice for small business loans. We put the CIP notice on "Expression of Interest" letters. The CIP notice is part of the documents that spit out for new deposit accounts and for new loans, both business and commercial.

Everyone at my bank is sick of the CIP notice. And most of our customers are too.

David,
I read that, analyzed it. Then, I re-read it and analyzed it again. Came to the same conclusion both times: stupid. I'm still looking for the customer notice regarding SAR and CTR filing...