Answer:
The tutorial is correct. Unfortunately, legislators and regulators don't always use the same dictionary, so while it would make great sense to use consistent definitions, the definitions of plain English words and phrases sometimes get a little twisted when they are used for legal and regulatory purposes (Regulation Z, the Truth in Lending regulation, uses two different definitions of the phrase "business day," for example).
Under Regulation CC, a banking day is defined as "that part of any business day on which an office of a bank is open to the public for carrying on substantially all of its banking functions." Because it specifically describes a banking day in terms of a business day, you need to look for a definition of business day in the same regulation. Business day is defined as "a calendar day other than a Saturday or a Sunday, January 1, the third Monday in January, the third Monday in February, the last Monday in May, July 4, the first Monday in September, the second Monday in October, November 11, the fourth Thursday in November, or December 25. If January 1, July 4, November 11, or December 25 fall on a Sunday, the next Monday is not a business day."
Even if your bank were to be open seven days a week and posted transactions to customer accounts 365 days a year, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays included, Saturdays, Sundays and the ten listed holidays would never be a banking day for the purposes of Regulation CC. That means, if your customer deposits a check on a Saturday, Regulation CC considers it deposited on the following Monday (assuming it's not a holiday), and all of that matters when determining when the bank has to start counting the business days after the banking day of deposit to determine when funds deposited by check must be made available.
It's always wise, when trying to figure out the terminology in a regulation, to look first at the definitions, which are almost always included in one of the first sections. In the case of Regulation CC, you can find the two definitions I quoted above here.
First published on BankersOnline.com 7/13/09
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