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Bill Payment Process Disclosure
Home City Federal Savings Bank
· Bill payment files are transmitted Monday through Friday at 7:00 pm EST.
· No bill payment processing is done on Federal holidays.
· Current dated payments will be processed that same night at 7:00 pm EST (assuming Monday – Friday) or next processing day if payment is initiated on a Saturday, Sunday, or a Federal holiday.
· Future dated single payments and recurring payments scheduled for a weekend or holiday will be processed on the business day following the scheduled date.
· If you choose to schedule a one time payment on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday, the payment will auto adjust to the next processing day.
Examples of Timing
· If a user generates a payment request at 10:00 am on Monday for a current dated payment.
· The bill payment file is transmitted on Monday at 7:00 pm EST.
· Tuesday morning the bill payment credits are sent to the electronic payee or the check is printed and mailed out.
· Wednesday, the customer’s account is debited for the amount of the processed bill payment.
· If a user initiates a bill payment on Saturday
· Payment will be transmitted Monday night
· Payment will be sent Tuesday morning.
· If a user schedules a single future dated payment for March 15th - which is a Saturday.
· Payment will be processed the night of the 17th
· Payment will be sent the morning of the 18th.
· If a user schedules a recurring payment for the 20th of every month.
· January the 20th falls on a Sunday so the payment will be processed Monday night.
Bill Payment Limits
· Default limits are per item minimum of $0.01 and per item maximum of $9,999.99.
· Aggregate daily limit is the total dollar amount of payments made by an individual user within one day.
· Daily transaction limit - $20,000.
Payment Processing
· Allow 3-5 business days to process most payments. (See exceptions below)
· Bill Payments remittance types:
Paper check (see sample below) – funds are pulled from an account, checks are printed, inserted, bar-coded, pre-sorted and mailed by the outsourcing vendor. Posting time is dependent upon mail delivery and payee processing.
Electronic – customer accounts at payee are credited electronically.
§ Standard ACH payment formats
§ Electronic File
§ MasterCard RPPS, Visa E-Pay, and other payment concentrators
· “Pay Anyone” solution allows payments to personal payees.
· Payments can only be made to payees within the US and its territories.
· The Bill Pay System will allow a maximum of 99 bill pay funding accounts to be set up for one customer.
The smart calendar automatically calculates a delivery date for a payment based on whether a payee is paid electronically or by check. When an amount is entered for a payee, an estimated delivery date is displayed on the page.
The smart calendar is available to customers when:
· Scheduling payments on the Make Payments page.
· Clicking the Pay this Payee after adding a new payee on the Add New Payee page.
Note: The smart calendar is not available to customers when scheduling recurring payments.
When customers click the calendar icon they are presented with a two-month smart calendar.
Payment Processing Exceptions
· Average processing timeframes do not apply for bill payments sent to the following:
U.S. Territories
§ Guam (GU)
§ Puerto Rico (PR)
§ U.S. Virgin Islands (VI)
International Military Bases
§ Armed Forces Americas (AA)
§ Armed Forces Europe, Asia, Canada, Middle East (AE)
§ Armed Forces Pacific (AP)
Payments to Government agencies:
Bill payments will be made to any government agency (IRS, taxes, child support, court fees, etc.) with the following limitations:
§ Home City Federal has limited ability to research any issues that may arise due to the government’s strict adherence to the Consumer Privacy Act.
§ Home City Federal will not be responsible for any late fees or penalties that may be incurred by these types of payments.
Cancel Payment/Stop Payment:
· A payment made using Bill Payment may be canceled the same day up until the 7:00 pm EST cutoff time and/or prior to the payment status showing Processing.
· Once a bill payment, via check, has been picked-up for processing, a customer can call the Home City Federal Customer Care Center for assistance and they will make their best attempt to stop that payment. We cannot place a stop on an electronic payment, only a payment that went out via Trust check.
· NSF, stop payment, and return item fees are charged to the customer.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions (based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals) against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
· OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. Such individuals or companies are referred to as “Specially Designated Nationals”, or “SDNs”. Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
· The OFAC screening solution screens quickly and accurately identifies OFAC suspects in the payee database. New payees and all payee modifications are screened on a daily basis. The complete payee database is screened during the weekend following any updates to the OFAC SDN list.
· A match between the list and the database requires Home City Federal to either block or reject any bill payment transactions to the SDN payees. In the event that a SDN payee is noticed, Home City Federal will perform the following activities:
§ Close the Payee and any active customer payee relationships
§ Create a stop payment service request on any outstanding payments to that payee
§ Create a refund to the customer
Payee Consolidation
While Home City Federal strongly encourages customers to use their financial services provider’s search capabilities, Home City Federal also understands that not all customers will take advantage of the payee search process, and will, on their own, add payees that already exist in the payee database. With this in mind, Home City Federal has developed a process called payee consolidation. This process allows personal payees to be consolidated with regional or national payees. This process helps to eliminate duplicate entries while streamlining the remittance process. This also allows for payees to be remitted electronically as opposed to paper check. Payee consolidation processes are both automated and manual.
· Newly added consumer–payee addresses are validated and standardized nightly against the United States Postal database to ensure a valid deliverable address.
· Automated payee consolidation of new payees occurs daily after payment processing has completed.
· Consolidation of existing payees occurs on a regular basis.
· During payee consolidation, all duplicate payees are combined into one payee.
For example:
1. ABC Co. P.O. BOX 1234
2. ABC Company P.O. Box 1234
3. ABC CO P.O. Box 1234
4. ABC Company P.O. BOX 1234
These would be consolidated into one payee for ABC Company, PO Box 1234.
· Payee Management will redirect checks to electronic payments when a payee agrees to become an electronic payee. When this is done, the address displayed in any product for the payee will be the address specified by the payee.
For example:
A user has a payee in his/her payee list that was set up with the address of:
XYZ Credit Card
1234 W. Street Topeka
Kansas 11111-1111
The next time the consumer looks at their payee the address is
XYZ Credit Card
5678 N. Avenue
New York, NY 12345-6789
…and the payee is now indicated as an electronic payee. This would be because XYZ is now an electronic payee that we have a relationship with, and they have requested that all their bill payments be directed to this location.
For customers already using Bill Payment who have already set up the internal payee, three scenarios may occur.
· If the customer has already set up the internal payee with a correct account and note number and the payment is being sent electronically, then the existing payee will be consolidated into the internal payee
· If the customer has already set up the internal payee, but does not have a correct account and note number and the payment is being sent by check, the new internal payee is added. Customer communication will need to occur to alert customers to begin to use the new payee for faster delivery.
· If the customer has already set up the internal payee and it has been de-activated or deleted, the payee remains in that status and no internal payee is added at the time this enhancement is implemented. If it is activated later, it is then identified as an internal payee for reporting purposes.
Bill Payment Exception Processing
· ACH Debit returns
· When an end user’s ACH debit for a bill payment is returned NSF, their bill pay funding account on the bill payment is coded as blocked.
· The end user receives an e-mail message (based on the email address from enrollment,) that their funding account has been set to Pending approval status (sample below).
· The end user’s bill pay funding accounts are no longer available in the drop down menu of their bill payment center; this prevents the end user from making a payment using any of their funding accounts.
· Once the funds are collected, Bill Payment Support will follow their normal procedures to unblock the Bill Pay account (usually 5 business days). Once the Bill Pay account is unblocked, there will be a one day delay before the funding accounts are again available.
· Current email message:
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Your bank-ceb@billsupport.com
06/04/05 09:53 AM
Please respond to your bank-CeB
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To: customer@emailaddress.com
cc:
Subject:
Your Payment Method has been reverted to Not Approved
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Hi XXX (XXX = customer’s first name here),
Your XXX’s account has been reverted to the Pending Approval. You will no longer be able to Schedule Payments from this account.
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Customers are automatically alerted by e-mail when the following situations occur:
· Funding Accounts are set to a pending status for bill payments
· Payment cancelled because of customer activity
· Payment cancelled because of exception conditions
· Debit returns
All alerts include the reason that the payment is being cancelled and returned.
Alerts are sent to the customer’s email address of record.
By alerting Bill Payment customers to these situations, customers have the ability to take more immediate corrective action on their payments and funding accounts to ensure that payments are re-initiated.
· Accounts are Blocked for Bill Payments
Customers are sent the following alert when there are insufficient funds to process one or more payments in one of the bill payment funding accounts and the customer is blocked from accessing all accounts on the Make A Payment screen. The alert identifies any payments that were cancelled.
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Subject: Your Funding account(s) are blocked and payments cancelled
Payments were not processed due to unavailability of funds in your account. The following funding accounts are not longer approved for bill payment:
Funding Account Name:
<funding account name>
You will no longer be able to schedule payments and all automatically scheduled payments will be suspended until funding accounts are approved. The following payments have been cancelled:
Payee Name Amount Payment Date Payment Option
<payee name> <$Amt> <date of transaction> <Recurring or One Time>
Please do not respond directly to this e-mail message. If you have any questions, please contact support for personal assistance.
Thank you,
Home City Federal
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· Payment Cancelled Because of Customer Activity
Customers are sent the following alert when they change a payment option that causes a scheduled payment to get cancelled.
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Subject: Payment Cancelled
This payment was cancelled because payee was made Inactive.
<payee name> Payment Amount <$Amt>
<payee full name> Funding Account <funding account name>
<payee address> Payment Option <Recurring or One Time>
Payment Scheduled <date of transaction>
Confirmation Number <confirm nbr>
<payee phone>
Please do not respond directly to this e-mail message. If you have any questions, please contact support for personal assistance.
Thank you,
Home City Federal
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· Payment Cancelled Because of Exception Conditions
Customers are sent the following alert when a payment is rejected because of a change in status of the funding account, an error with the payee, or when an exact duplicate payment exists.
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Subject: Payment Unsuccessful
Payee Name: <payee full name>
Payee Nickname: <payee name>
Payment Amount: <$Amt>
Funding account: <funding account name>
Payment Date was scheduled on: <date of transaction>
Confirmation#: <confirm nbr>
Your payment was not processed. Another payment is already scheduled to this payee for the same amount on the same day. If your intention was to send two payments, please reschedule the second payment.
Payee Name Amount Payment Date Payment Option
<payee name> <$Amt> <date of transaction> <Recurring or One Time>
Please do not respond directly to this e-mail message. If you have any questions, please contact support for personal assistance.
Thank you,
Home City Federal
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· Debit Returns
Customers are sent the following alert when the financial organization rejects a payment as an ACH debit return.
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Subject: Bill Payment Important Payment Information
The following electronic withdrawal from your <funding account name> account could not be completed for the following reason: <return reason>.
Your Payment to <payee name> has not been paid.
Please do not respond directly to this e-mail message. If you have any questions, please contact support for personal assistance.
Thank you,
Home City Federal
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