Household HSBC Watch

For October retirement checks the Federal Reserve transferred Social Security payments and military retirement checks to banks on September 28, 2005, at 1900 hours. With few exceptions, funds were not available to recipients until the nightly update on the night of Monday, 3 October 2005. The banks, therefore, got to use your money for five days. Since the source of the bank’s deposit was the Federal Reserve the deposits were low risk.

Did you incur any NSF charges on 3 October 2005? Were you charged additional fees before they got around to crediting your deposit? Did check 21 cause checks to process before your deposit was credited? As Bank of America can testify, this once-illegal action is now legal under check 21. Everything processes according to the date-time stamp. There is, however, no date time stamp on your Social Security or Military Retirement deposit. Another insult or injury to veterans and the elderly? Your comments are invited.