TN 31 (01-08)

A. Policy

Payments that either cannot be credited to the designated bank account or are returned by the financial institution (FI) because the individual is not due the payment are returned to the SSA trust funds.

A foreign FI that cannot credit a payment to the designated account should return the payment to the processor bank that services the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (FRBKC) in that country.

B. Process

1. Processor FI

When a payment cannot be credited to the designated account, the processor FI:

• Credits the returned payment to the special clearing account maintained for FRBKC;

• Sends FRBKC an account statement and complete information about the returned payment; and

• Faxes or emails a copy of the documentation to the applicable FBU for France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, or United Kingdom, or to FRBKC for all other countries.

• The FBU (for a country other than France that is listed in the previous bullet attempts to redirect the payment if the beneficiary is alive and due the payment. (See GN 02402.245C.) If the payment has not been redirected within 5 working days, or if the payment is not due the beneficiary, the FBU returns the payment to FRBKC and codes the reason to ITS.gov. If a rejected or returned payment in FRBKC's account at the processor bank has not been redirected by the FBU within 5 working days, FRBKC returns the payment to SSA. If the payment has been redirected by the FBU, FRBKC uses this information to balance the books.

If FRBKC does not redirect the payment to new bank data, it returns the payment to SSA through the Department of the Treasury. ITS.gov reflects the reason for the return.

C. Procedure - FBU

When an IDD payment for Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, or the United Kingdom is returned because of an incorrect bank or branch number, do the following:

• Determine the correct information by referring to the bank routing numbers guide or documentation in the FBU, or by contacting the beneficiary or the beneficiary's FI.

• Fax a request to the processor bank to redirect the payment to the correct account. Annotate the appropriate payment listing.

• Advise the beneficiary that the payment may be delayed a few days.

• Make corrective input to avoid further unprocessable transactions.

• When a payment cannot be redirected within 5 working days or is returned for reasons other than invalid bank data, input a Stop Payment on ITS.gov. For any stop other than death, remove the stop when it is no longer needed. Otherwise, FRBKC will automatically continue to return any payments received from SSA for that beneficiary, even after the bank data is updated on ITS.gov.

• If you find that erroneous death information was applied to a record on ITS.gov, remove the information and notify FRBKC.

D. References

• Intercepting IDD Payments, GN 02402.235

• Coding for each IDD Country – List of References, GN 02402.220D.