Compliance Blog

Written by Steve Van Beek

The Treasury Department will end over-the-counter sales of Savings Bonds after December 31, 2011.  After that, purchases will only be available electronically at www.treasurydirect.gov.  

Treasury has put together a toolkit for financial institutions to use in informing members of the changes.

There is also a FAQ for financial institutions available here, including:

"What is changing?

After December 31, 2011, the U.S. Department of Treasury will end sales of paper Series EE and I Savings Bonds through over-the-counter channels, including financial institutions and mail-in orders. Savings bonds will remain available for purchase as electronic issues in TreasuryDirect.

Does this change impact institutions who submit purchase applications electronically?

Yes. All sales of paper savings bonds through financial institutions will end regardless of the method used to submit the purchase applications to the Federal Reserve Bank.

What do we need to do?

Issuing agents should stop accepting applications for paper savings bonds after December 31, 2011. Customers have until the close of business on December 31, 2011, to submit their final purchase applications and funds. The back-end processing schedule remains the same and agents will have the normal five-day period after December 31, 2011, to submit orders to the Federal Reserve Bank."

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NCUA recently announced that Lara Rodríguez will be the new Deputy General Counsel - replacing Michael McKenna who moved up to General Counsel earlier this year.