After Check 21 is in effect, if a customer wants a copy of their check - can a IRD be generated for them rather than pulling the original item (even if the original item was not an IRD)?

I am fairly certain that you will have to produce the substitute check if the customer wants a copy of his/her check. You can certainly offer the IRD to the customer, but after 10/28, the legal document is the substitute check. If the customer wants the legal document, I believe that you have to produce the substitute check. The IRD has no legal significance.

You can still offer copies of checks to your customers after 10/28. If you receive an IRD via cash letter or if you are involved with an image exchange cash letter you would need to provide your customer with an IRD.

Now in your scenario you received the original paper check in the cash letter. If you imaged the check you can produce a copy of the check for your customer (the same as you do today). You do not need to produce an IRD if you received the original paper item, nor would you want to as there are warranty and indemnity issues that will kick in.

This is not legal advice as I am not a lawyer.

Please consider, if I request a copy of a check to prove a payment to the IRS (or anyone else) the last thing I want you to give me is a substitute check. It's a live encoded item which, even though I only sent it to them as proof, the scurrilous toads could re-deposit. Whether they did it in ignorance or with intent, you would pay it a second time.

Banks will continue to provide customers with garden variety copies when all the customer wants is proof of payment. Customers will get substitute checks only when that is what they absolutely need under the circumstances.

Not necessarily, Ken. In NY and in Mass., I believe that banks will have to provide substitute checks to consumer customers if they are covered by a current law that requires banks to furnish returned original checks. In addition, in your example to the IRS, a customer could just as easily copy the substitute check to prove payment.

Many customers want copies of substitute checks for the same reason that they want returned originals: to verify funds have been exchanged from their checking account. Certainly, they can achieve this by using other methods -- e.g. statement itemization -- but some customers are going to insist on reviewing substitute checks.

My response was pretty well focused on responding to the original poster's question - if a customer wants a copy of their check....