IBA Compliance Connection

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An internal audit revealed a record of a cashier’s check that is stale. We would like to contact the purchaser to determine if the check was ever provided to the payee or if the purchaser would like the check to be reissued. Our records indicate that a husband and wife co-owned an account with us, and the wife purchased the cashier’s check when she closed the account. We believe the account was closed as part of the couple’s divorce. Should we contact both account owners or just the wife, who was the only one to actually purchase the check?

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In our view, you should reach out to the purchaser of the cashier’s check (the wife) if you wish to determine whether the check was ever delivered to the payee.

Regulation P generally prohibits a bank from disclosing nonpublic personal information about a consumer, including “the fact that an individual is or has been one of your customers or has obtained a financial product or service from you.” The Illinois Banking Act similarly prohibits a bank from disclosing a customer’s financial information. While there are some exceptions in both laws, it does not appear to us that any of them would apply to this situation, where only one of the two former account co-owners purchased the cashier’s check, and it was done in the context of a divorce and the closing of the account.

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

  • Regulation P, 12 CFR 1016.3(q)(2)(i)(C) (“Personally identifiable financial information includes . . . The fact that an individual is or has been one of your customers or has obtained a financial product or service from you . . . .”)
  • Illinois Banking Act, 215 ILCS 5/48.1(c) (“Except as otherwise provided by this Act, a bank may not disclose to any person, except to the customer or his duly authorized agent, any financial records or financial information obtained from financial records relating to that customer of that bank unless . . . .”)