Hi, Everyone!

We are looking at increasing efficiency in our teller areas. One of the items we are looking at is the distribution of customer statements.

We have some customers that have requested that their account statements be held at the bank until they pick them up. When they pick them up from the teller station, there are a number of practices in place.

We are wondering:

1. If other banks are still holding statements at the bank?
2. If you charge a fee for this service?
3. Do you require a customer agreement to do so?
4. Do you have the customer sign anything when they pick up the statement?
4a. If you don't obtain the customer signature, do you obtain an ID if you don't know them?

Believe it or not, this seemingly simple topic has resulted in a lot of discussion here. We are wondering what other banks are doing so we can get some ideas on how to proceed.

Thanks for your responses!

We still hold customer statements at our branches for our customers (maybe 50 a month). We do not charge a fee for holding them. We do not have a customer agreement, rather we have use a "statement hold card."
The statement hold card has the account name, number, which branch the statement is to be sent to and held at, the names of the individuals authorized to pick up the statement and their signatures. It also includes a grid with the month, date the statement was picked up, signature of person picking it up, and the employee who releases it.
Our cards are printed out yearly (in house using Excel)so updating them is quick and easy and can be done at any time. We do ask for ID if someone is not known to us, but more often, another teller or bank employee knows the individual.

Hope this helps.

We do hold statements, but rarely and we discourage the practice. One of the biggest concerns is that the customer will not get the mandatory disclosures in a timely manner and may also lose their right to dispute an item under both the UCC and Reg E if they do not pick up their statements every month.
BC

We do not hold statements anymore - if the customer doesn't want them coming to their home address, we suggest they get a PO Box.

We don't hold statements anymore. If people don't want paper statements sent to them, they can sign up for e-statements. That's the only way we won't mail them.

If they walk into a branch and want a reproduction, we can print one off our Imaging system - but we charge them $1 for it. Anyone can get images of their statements through our WebBanking system and print for themselves for free.

We still hold statements. Nothing signed when they take them. We have had some discussion that we will stop doing this, but see it as a service to the customers that come in regularly, or just wish to pick it up themselves.

We still hold statements. The custoemr has to sign a request to hold card. When the statements are picked up a register is signed/dated. A review is done twice a year to verify reuest cards are present for all hold statements. If one missing it is attached to the next statement for signature. We show this review in our security section of compliance report. we are a small topwn so we are able to keep up with this easy enough. Also we contact the customer if their statement is not picked within a short time so we dont have any that just lay around.

If you are going to do this, the types of controls mentioned above in the posts are necessary to prevent employee fraud. Statements not going to customers provides an opportunity for dishonest employees to play with the accounts. If they are not picked up within a certain time period, the agreement should state that the statement will be mailed.

We hold statement too, and mail them if the customer does not pick them up within 30 days. You can't hold them for long periods of time. The customer has to be given the opportunity to examine the statement for forgeries, encoding errors, posting errors, etc.

We also have customers sign a hold request form and sign that they have picked them up. And only let signers on the account pick up the statements. If we were a larger bank we probably would not do this, but like the other poster we have few and know our customers. But you need controls to prevent fraud in this area.

The customers that pick up their statements are the ones that come in every day or every other day, so making sure that they pick up their statements isn't a problem. And the way our system is set up, if the statement is in our optical system, it was produced.

I guess we've never had a problem with that in the past. I know if a statement isn't picked up, which doesn't happen too often, but I know we've then mailed them or called the customer to see when they were going to pick them up. We've never had a problem. But I will check with the compliance lady here to see what we do have in place for something like that. It's never been a problem, so nothing has been done with that.