I am in the process of drafting both a policy and procedure on the handling of employee accounts (opening, maintenance, transactions etc).

The proposed policy would limit the opening of employee accounts and family member's accounts to myself (the HR Administrator) and the Member Services Manager. The maintenance of these accounts would be limited to the Member Services Manager and the Head Teller.

Do any of you have any similar policies that I could review and take into consideration?

Thank you,

Jeremy Brown

We do not treat out employees any differently from our customers. New employees open their accounts with the branch customer service representatives and if maintenance is needed, they request through a CSR or phone center personnel. Employee overdrafts are monitored in Human Resources and employees get a free checking account but other than that they are treated like everyone else!

My experience with this has been employees would open their account with any new account rep. Maintenance was limited to a select few within the organization. As for employee's family members, those could be opened and maintained by anyone other than the employee. Also, our tellers can not process transactions for themselves or family members. Employee accounts are "coded" and needed a password to view the balance/activity that only the employee should have. This prevents others from 'looking' at direct deposit amounts, etc.

We define as immediate family (as you have listed) and anyone living in the same household as the employee (works for roommates as well)

For those who responded (and those reading...), does the individual who opens the account code the account as an employee account, or is there a method used to report the new employee's account number to H.R. or I.T.?

Yes, we have a field on our core system to indicate Employee/Insider. We also consider anyone "in the household" a member of family.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to post this on, but I'm going to go for it anyways.

We employees so they cannot access/transfer to their own accounts via our core system. We require them to use the ATM/online banking.

My question is in regards to family members. We currently do not have family member's accounts coded on the system as employee accounts. Since we do not have them coded this means that employees can access, transfer, etc. to their family member accounts. Internal audit does do a monthly review of these.

I would like to know if other banks restrict access to both employee AND family member accounts via their core system.

Thanks.

It has been the policy everywhere I have worked that an employee is prohibited from doing any transaction for a family member. This includes taking a deposit or cashing a check at the teller window; doing any online maintenance such as address change; opening a new account, or any type of transfer between accounts. You just don't do it, period.

We have no mechanism for blocking access/restricting transactions on family accounts, but like others we prohibit employees to conduct transactiosn or maintenance for family.

In addition, we have the same restrictions in place for any related interest of the emoployee, not just relatives. For example, if a bank staff member is on the local church council (and thus able to make decisions on behalf of the church), that staff member is prohibited from completing transactiosn or maintenance for the church.

Employees are told they are not supposed to conduct business for family members. They are supposed to give it to another employee to conduct. However, since our system does not block them from doing this, they could if they wanted to.

How do you monitor? Besides from reviewing employee accounts do you check any access logs?

Generally, it's hard to monitor transactiosn for family members/related interests, since it is not always apparent to which accounts the restrictions would apply. If a prohibit transaaction is identified through routine review of maintenance reports, teller difference research, etc.- then the affected parties would be subject to additional monitoring (which is done manually).

My personal advice is to not bank where you work. You don't want your financial information floating around at your own financial institution. And also, the Internal Audit department audit's employee accounts reqularly, and that is another invasion of privacy. I have a story about when I worked for Superior Bank in Birmingham. Back in 2006 I had a car accident, and the insurance company "totalled" out my car and issued me a check for the value of my car. Fortunately, I had equity in my car, so I was able to deposit $3000.00 of the check into my checking account that I could use to pay down on a new car. Well, one day, the Director of Security at my bank actually called me in to ask me about the recent "large deposit" to my account. I was appalled that they were asking me about my personal account, and about a totally legitimate transaction. I was offended by this invasion of privacy. You would think at least before they called me out, that the bank would have the technology to determine that this was an insurance check, and not just a "cash" deposit. My gosh! Everybody in the bank knew I had a car accident! Well, I wound up closing my "employee" account and I took my personal business to another financial institution. There are too may banks offering "free checking" to the public. So who wants to open up their private finances to their employer? It's beyond me!

Do you include spouse's parents/siblings/etc. in the following definition?
"Family member is defined as any immediate family member (i.e. parent, step-parent, sibling) including the spouse, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend of the family member."

Thanks for the help. I think I'm reading into this too much.

Is anyone here requiring employees to sign off on something stating they understand they cannot open accounts for themselves or their family members, process transactions on their own accounts, sign bank checks in which they are the payee, etc? If so, would you be willing to share your agreemet with me?

Our employees acknowledge receipt of the employee handbook