New law to sink floating checks
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High-tech changes in the banking industry will soon be affecting the most mundane of financial products, the checking account. On Oct. 28, banks will begin implementing the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act — better know as Check 21 — aimed at updating the processing of checks from the equivalent of the Pony Express era to the Computer Age. Consumers and businesses won’t see big changes right away. But over the next year or so, some of the paper checks they write will no longer come back with their statements. Instead, they’ll get photocopies of their checks. Because these images can be transferred electronically, they’ll clear so fast that consumers will have to learn to live without “float.” Float is the delay in check processing that has allowed consumers to write a check at the grocery store on Wednesday in hopes that it won’t clear their account until their paycheck is deposited on Friday. Banks and other financial institutions already have begun notifying customers about what’s coming. “We want to make sure they don’t view this as penalizing them,” said Wilton Dolloff, executive vice president of operations and technology at Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s just that banking is changing, and paper is being pushed out of the system.” More : seattletimes.nwsource.com |