We have recently had discussions about customers who want to cash a check on their account, but make the check payable to the bank. We have instructed tellers to not accept these and only to cash checks made payable to the recipient themselves, or made out to simply "cash".

But what about the opening of a new account? Typically, the new customer will make a check out payable to the bank for the initial deposit. Should the customer make the check payable to themselves? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

It's their money, not the Bank's.

We always instruct the customer to make the check out to themselves. However, I am unsure of any regulatory reasoning to allow or not allow this.

I can see having them make the check out to cash or themselves but we have customers that mail deposits in (drawn on their accounts at other banks). these are sometimes made payable to our bank. I think it makes them feel a little safer (harder to cash a check payable to a bank than to an individual if it gets lost or stolen).

The check should be made payable to the customer. The customer sitting across from you can simply endorse it on the back.

The customer mailing a check drawn on a different bank for deposit in your bank should also make the check payable to himself. He can then affix a restrictive endorsement beginning "For Deposit Only." Thereafter, they can affix the name of the institution and even the specific account number they want before they sign their name.

We've had this discussion several times recently. We tell the tellers that a check payable to the bank means the customer is paying the bank for something such as a loan payment. If the customer presents one of their checks payable to the bank and wants money then we have them mark out the bank's name, initial it and then write "cash" on the pay to line. We also have them endorse checks payable to cash for more than $50 just to show who got the money.