IBA Compliance Connection

Your go to source for compliance!

We are one of two charters under the same holding company. We are printing statement stuffers advertising our overdraft services, which are identical. The envelope and periodic statements both include our bank’s name. We don’t want to pay to print up separate flyers for each charter, which would be identical but for the bank names. Can we print these without any bank name so that both banks can use the statement stuffers?

—

by

admin

Yes, we believe it is permissible to use statement stuffers that do not identify your bank’s name. We are not aware of any specific law or regulation that would require a bank to state its name in a statement stuffer when the bank’s identity can be inferred from other materials in the same mailing. 

However, it is important to consider the general prohibitions on misleading or inaccurate statements or misrepresentations in advertisements. In the context of your question, we do not believe that the advertisements would be misleading or inaccurate. Customers should be able to readily identify the source of the advertisement, given that they will find the advertisement inside an envelope and together with a periodic statement, both of which state the bank’s name. 

We believe there is a low risk that your customers would be confused about the source of the advertisement. But you should closely monitor the use of these advertisements, in order to ensure that they are used only as statement stuffers. In other contexts, it may not be possible to identify the source of the advertisement, which could be misleading, or at the very least, confusing. 

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

  • Regulation DD general advertising requirements, 12 CFR 1030.8(a) (“An advertisement shall not: (1) Be misleading or inaccurate or misrepresent a depository institution’s deposit contract. . . .”)