Morning all,

Historically, we have taken a hard line on making sure BO is dated the day of the account opening or at worst, the day before if the customer E-Signed their account opening documents. As we have more and more customers E-Signing documents now, we are running into situations where business whom have multiple signers take 8-10 days to sign a signature card while BO was signed by the control person much earlier.

Has anyone received feedback from regulators on whether or not this is OK?
Example: ABC LLC signs BO form on 4/12, last signer signs sig card on 4/24, account opened on 4/24. BO doesn't match account opening date. Are you guys having a new BO form filled out? Is your process to not have them sign BO until all other documents completed? What are you guys doing?

Thanks!

I really have no idea what the actual relationship is between getting signature specimens from authorized signers and determining who the beneficial owners might be. John and Andy could own the business and Randy and Dan could be the authorized signers on the account. There is no relationship.

I didn't say there was. The account won't be opened until the signature cards are all signed. What's your question? Are you implying it's ok to open an account with signature cards completed? I don't understand the comment.

Our BSA Officer recently attended a BSA Forum and this subject was brought up. They were told that this is a hot topic for regulators and that early or late signing of the BO form is a bad thing and that it should be dated the same date of account opening or account changes. This was brought up by the other banks attending the forum and the conductor of the forum stated that she had also been hearing the same thing.

My point is that the people signing the signature card to provide you a signature specimen for your records will only reflected authorized signers on the account and may not be the owners and may not even have the power to open or close an account for the entity. They are not the same thing. I think you need to examine what is legally happening and then make a determination as to when the account is opened. If they are also in some way attesting to the opening of the account, then your signature cards may not be even set up correctly. The canned deposit documentation provided by form vendors for business account opening is terrible. They consistently try to jam rounds pegs in a one size square hole all the time. That does not always work for business accounts depending on the entity's operating agreement and corporate resolutions provided to the bank.

We have this happen from time to time. A BO could be out of town for any number of reasons, especially if it's a minority owner who has no operational control. It may not be an issue to get every BO to sign and date the forms perfectly when the LEC is owned by a sole owner or two individuals. But if there are multiple BO's and one (1) or two (2) are passive owners, it may not be practical to have everyone sign the form on the same date.

Banks and bankers have created this artificial linkage between beneficial ownership and authorized signers out of whole cloth. Sure, in many cases, owners will be signers, but I will bet dollars to Krispy Cremes that every bank has many business accounts with non-owner employees are authorized signers, and you can bet your sweet potato pie (I need to get some breakfast!) that there are a lot of entities with one or more 25% beneficial owners who are not account signers.

Yes, beneficial ownership certifications should be signed and dated in close proximity to account openings (or triggering events), but refusing to open an account until all authorized signers have signed the signature card is a practice that bankers should think about again, perhaps.

We don't require BOs to sign, but we still have the same issue. At times, certification forms are mailed and returned to the bank, and we do not open accounts until we have all of the signed documentation from the customer. Therefore, a form that a customer mails to the bank cannot be signed on the same day the account is open. We have an allowable timeframe described in procedures, and if the signature is obtained before that, bankers must get a new certification. For loan accounts, we require it be dated any time between application and closing. We have not have any objections from examiners, but I don't consider it a settled issue and prepare to defend it with every exam that comes around.

Maybe the way I worded my question threw a lot of people off. When an account is being opened, all documents necessary to be signed by the company are sent via E-Sign. BO might be completed and signed day 1 by the only person necessary, but all signers don't finish signing signature cards under day 9 which is when we get the account opened. The documents have 0 relation to each other and sorry if I made that implication.

My question was, has anyone run into issues like this with exams/audits? Is 7-10 days acceptable? Are you reaching back out to branches to get a new form signed so that it matches your account opening date? In situations like this we send out a physical form because E-Signing a second time would put a post-date on it and we want it to match account opening.

I don't disagree with you John. I try to stay out of processes that are outside of BSA, but I am always giving them recommendations. In a perfect world I can say, send signature cards. Once you have those back, send a BO Form last to be signed so you can open the account when you get that back, which is what my best plan of action in this situation might be.

We have been caught with BO being done after sig cards (as little as a day after) but never had a problem if BO was done first. Usually that is when the BO is done the day before and the last signer comes in the next day and that is when account is opened.

i recently attended some training and there was discussion of dates on the BOC forms not matching account opening. the question we were asked is "When was the account funded" (loan) "When did the transaction occur in the account" (DDA)
it may be the account was uploaded - resulting in a NEW account, but not yet ACTIVE and due to time and mail and all factors mentioned above the result was the BOC had a different signature.