IBA Compliance Connection

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A deposit account customer died, and an individual in Lithuania appears to be representing the customer’s estate. Assuming the bank receives proper documentation to close the account, how can we send the account funds to that individual? We have a policy of not sending any international wires, but we are a member of the Federal Reserve’s Fedwire funds service.

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Once you have received proper documentation of the individual’s authority over the customer’s estate and the account funds, your institution should be able to send the account funds via Fedwire — we link to detailed instructions for international wires through Fedwire below. Since this situation is relatively rare for your institution, we do not see a problem with performing this transaction as an exception to your general policy, with documentation to demonstrate why the exception was necessary.

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

  • The Fedwire guide recommends obtaining a “SWIFT Bank Identifier Code” for the recipient’s bank, and a list of codes for Lithuanian institutions is available here