We currently have two active routing numbers but are looking at discontinuing the one that belonged to a bank we acquired several years ago. A member of management said when a bank she used to work at did this they were able to submit a "mass notification of change" to Social Security. I have now been asked to look into this. I checked with our state ACH association and the representative had never heard of it. Does anyone here know if there is a process other than submitting each change individually?

Only the owner of the account can legally submit a change I thought?

Could be like a mass NOC or something? I've not heard of it, but I've never looked either.

From page 2-3 of the Treasury Department's Fiscal Bureau's Green Book:

Changes to Routing Transit Numbers
If a financial institution changes RTNs (e.g., due to merger), it must notify the FRB ACH department as soon as possible to have the old RTN rescinded in ACD and have all future ACH transactions reflect the financial institution’s active ACH routing number. Updates to the ACD will update the FOMF. Additionally, financial institutions should send a Notification of Change (NOC) to each originating federal agency from which it receives payments impacted by the routing number changes.

The following steps should be taken in updating the ACD routing number data:
x Confirm that no activity is being received on the obsolete RTN prior to deletion.
x Allow at least three months after the update to the ACD before deleting an obsolete RTN.
x Delete an obsolete RTN only after all activity has been transferred to the surviving RTN.

Not to pile on, but...

in addition to everything above, you need to send NOCs on every single item received, not just federal. Be aware that because of fraud and such, many utility companies will not act on a NOC without first contacting the holder of the utility account (meaning your electric company is going to contact you to see if that is valid before they act on it), so you should consider how you will notify your account holders that are using the old RT# that it is going away and to convert to new RT#.

While you're at it, may as well think about how you will convert those with old checks using old RT# too.

FRB requires you to complete the FRB FedACH Participation Agreement - Part 7, Merger Options, and have it signed and submitted by your institution's EUAC. They will ask that your volume be very small, less than 25 items per month being received on the old RT#.

Thank you John & Happy for this information.