View Rule

The Fiscal Service is proposing a revision of its regulations governing the responsibilities of financial institutions when processing Treasury checks. Under the current rule, the definition of reasonable efforts to verify the validity of Treasury checks does not include a requirement for financial institutions to query Treasury’s check verification tool. Technological advances allow near-real time verification for Treasury checks. The proposed changes would revise the regulations such that verifying the status of a Treasury check via Treasury’s verification tool is a component of reasonable efforts to ensure that a Treasury check is valid. This will help to eliminate payments over cancellation and enable Treasury to implement true stops on Treasury checks.   Financial institutions will be charged back for the presentation of invalid checks which have been stopped by Treasury or the issuing Federal Program Agency.