We are working through the process of turning off paper for our DDA statements and a question came up about who has the authority to do this. If you have a primary and a secondary on the account, can either one "sign" the agreement? Should paper be turned off at the account level or customer level? How should statements that go to a third party, such as an accountant, be handled?

Any experience information you could pass on would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

This is a good question. I haven't seen any hard and fast rule on it. Personally, I'd handle it like a privacy opt-out and let any of the owners make the decision to go paperless. It could apply to all the accounts they own, or just the ones they select. If another owner says no, I'd revert to the lowest common denominator and send paper.

I don't think that one can presume that the person on Name-Line-1 is the primary and the person on Name-Line-2 is the secondary. I would bet that your Deposit Account Agreement makes them equals and gives either the right to give the bank instructions about the account. I realize that there is probably a section that also allows the bank to require ALL in the event of a dispute, but that should not come into play here.

Analauditor, if you think you have more rights to your account than your joint-tenant spouse has, you must not have been married very long.

Al

In contrast to Andy, I'd say that if one person wants paper and the other wants e-statement, do both.

You certainly aren't obliged to provide e-delivery. But unless a regulation requires that a writing be delivered to more than any one party, e-delivery (accepted under the rules in E-SIGN) should take care of the matter.

As for copies to accountants, etc., you can make any arrangements that you are capable of delivering on, as long as your customer and the addressee are in agreement. Those copies aren't required by regulation.

Obviously, this is a customer service issue, but it's also an ESIGN issue. Part of the consent process is to establish which documents will become tree-free. The bank's standard consent process can have blanket coverage or you can go ala-carte, but you must have the informed consent of an authorized party for the switch to be valid, document by document.