I am trying to find specific regulations concerning the monitoring and controls that need to be in place for incoming mail that included live checks received from customers. I am researching information concerning dual controls and segregation of duties but cannot find anything specific on the handling of live checks. Can anyone help out?

There are no specific regulations requiring dual control on anything. It's an industry practice to ensure the protection of both the bank's assets and the employees when they have access to readily available assets, i.e., cash, convertible securities, or negotiable instuments, etc. Access to live checks is not an issue when opening mail any more than live checks would be an issue when presented over a teller counter (due to the fact that paper checks are traceable). The real issue is if there is cash in the mail. In order to protect the employee from accusations and the following investigation when a customer claims they mailed in a large sum of cash in thier envelope, you want two people to open the mail and log it. Once the mail is opened and logged and no cash is present, one person can then process the transactions.

Regarding mail received which was not addressed to anyone in particular. Do you open under dual control and log? If so, what information do you put on your log?

are you saying you log every piece of mail coming in? I'm assuming thats there only job for the day.

No, most mail is addressed to someone, but if it is not addressed to anyone we have been told 2 people should open under dual control. Anyone else do this?

I can only quote advice relating to industrial/ commercial (non-banking) corporations, where I believe a lower level of control may be considered appropriate. ..... When I worked in external audit (big eight firm, sorry, big six, .... five, ... four, is that right? ), our clients were expected to open all mail under dual control at all locations where invoices and checks were expected to be received, and to log all significant items.

Later when I worked in insolvency, it was routine practice to log all mail received (no payments were routinely received, so no dual control was necessary).

Like any business management has to accept a level of risk they are comfortable with. With checks being received from clients I wouldn't be comfortable without dual control.

BTW Dual control, in my mind at least, doesn't mean two people have to be focussed on the task; another person in the same room, with the person dealing with the mail in plain view (not facing the wall, or inside a "cube") would be satisfactory.

We generally have two people open the mail every morning. Nothing is logged. I agree it probably would be a good idea to log any cash received.

They way I had my suggestions for dual controls implemented was to find another area of the bank that had this present and drafted my suggestion to read "to ensure consistency with other areas of the bank that currently operate under dual controls" - blah, blah, blah - but the bottom line is that it makes it really hard to decline the suggestion when you point out other areas operating as such