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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

Federal Reserve Board Amends Policy on Payment System Risk

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance Federal Reserve ACH Electronic Transfers Federal Register

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

On August 25, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) published in the Federal Register an amendment to Part II of its Policy on Payment System Risk (PSR Policy) in order to “conform to enhancements to the Reserve Banks’ same-day automated clearinghouse (ACH) service.” Posting rules set forth in the PSR Policy govern the times that credits and debits are posted to institutions’ accounts at the Federal Reserve Banks and determine an institution’s intraday account balance and whether the institution has incurred a negative balance (i.e., a “daylight overdraft”).

Changes to the PSR Policy include the following:

  • An ACH derived returns function to enable institutions to generate returns via FedLine Web using information from the forward ACH items received through FedACH. The function is intended for institutions that lack the ability to generate returns on their own. Because the derived returns function uses information not available until the day after the processing day for forward ACH items, the Reserve Banks will provide users of the function an interim solution: a same-day paper return option for same-day forward entries greater than $10,000.
  • Clarification of posting times for paper returns and paper notifications of change of prior-dated items. Because these items are manually processed by Reserve Bank staff during normal business hours, the Board has announced that posting will now only occur at 5:00 p.m. The PSR Policy has been modified to remove the 8:30 a.m. posting time. However, depending on when the Reserve Banks receive FedLine Webs returns and FedLine Web notifications of change, these items will continue to be posted at 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Details regarding amendments to the “Procedures for Measuring Daylight Overdrafts,” including specific details corresponding to the 8:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 5:30 p.m. transaction posting times, are also included in the Board’s policy statement.