Caution - Alabama Credit Union (Especially OOS Families)

ChicagoBear
Wed, 06 Aug 2014 16:19:42 +0000

When this situation first happened, my reaction was it was just an “overzealous teller” since what she told me was absolutely contradicted in the published regulatory guidance and every bank consulting website I could find. But after my conversation with their customer service supervisor and comments like M2CK’s above about other credit unions, it appears to be a credit union problem.

UPDATE: The Examination Manuals of the three federal bank examiners (Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) as well as the one federal credit union examiner (NCUA) are published on their websites. The examination procedures for the three bank regulators are quite similar and take up several pages and all require that their examiners investigate the appropriateness of a sample of holds placed due to “reason to doubt collectibility”.

On the otherhand, the examination procedures in the NCUA manual are approximately one paragraph of bullet points and do not mention the testing of “reasons to doubt collectibility”. Their examination procedures seem to concentrate on signage in the branch, the brochure given out when you open the account and the routine hold policy - not exception-based holds.

So, its a long way of saying, if you use a credit union, if the management doesn’t want to adhere to the rules on exception holds, there is a very good chance their regulator will never question them about it.

PS - Dixie, check deposits for new accounts can always be held for up to 9 business days during the first 30 days an account it open. Its unfortunate, but totally allowed at banks or credit unions.