Two questions: situation A spouse of a revervist called to active duty has a checking account in her name only and the account has od protection on it. 1) Does the od protection rate of interest qualify for protection under SCRA and 2) does this 6% apply to the outstanding balance before the reservist was called to active duty?

1. No
2. No, unless the reservist is obligated on the account.

Anon is correct in that the SCRA protects debts on which the servicemember is obligated, or the servicemember and their spouse. It specifically does not call a debt between a servicemember and any other person a joint debt and those are not covered. The spirit of the SCRA would protect them, however. And if you are in a community property state where the servicemember is obligated on the spouses debts, whether signed on the debt or not, it would be considered covered by a couple of attorneys I have spoken with.

Extending the protections to the spousal account are optional for you. If you know that the deployment has caused a financial hardship, you may well opt to do this and show that you are a good corporate citizen. Again, that isn't required.

Let's say that the servicemember is joint on the account. Would the 6% only apply to the amount of the line accessed before the call to active duty and then any amount advanced on the line after the call to active duty would be at the note rate?

It really depends on how your loan documents are worded but how do you propose to calculate that each month. It seems to me you will have two amortizations to contend with. One at 6% with a P & I calculation each month on a declining balance and one at XX % on a different balance also amortized monthly. Lets not even get into how to disclose it.

I think I would look at the amount of interest income monthly at 6% and at xx% and unless we are talking about a whole lot of money give them the 6% and forget about it.

That would get my vote since it would be in the customer's favor and we are talking about a fairly low outstanding balance ($1,000), even though it appears that SCRA seems to apply to credit card balances (or od protection) and would require a bank to do as you describe, ie separate the before active duty balance from after active duty advances.