Hold Funds Policy

(For the purpose of this policy, “cheque” includes paper-based negotiable instruments such as certified cheques, bank drafts or money orders.)

Holds for personal accounts.

When you deposit a cheque into your Coast Capital personal deposit account, we may withhold the funds from you for a short time, until the cheque is cleared at the financial institution on which it is drawn. This is called a “hold-funds period”. When a hold-funds period is in effect, your held funds will not be available for withdrawal or used for payments.

Our standard hold-funds period for cheques that are encoded with magnetic ink character recognition and are not damaged or mutilated is a maximum of four (4) business days, starting from the day after you deposit the cheque.

(For the purpose of this policy, “business day” refers to regular weekdays only and excludes Saturdays, Sundays, and statutory holidays.)

For cheques deposited to your personal deposit account, we will make the first $100 of the funds deposited available to you immediately.

We may extend the maximum hold period or restrict access to the first $100 of all funds deposited if:

• a cheque has been endorsed more than once
• a cheque is deposited six (6) months or more after it was dated
• a cheque is not issued in Canadian dollars
• a cheque is issued from an account at a bank branch outside of Canada
• we have reasonable grounds to suspect there may be illegal or fraudulent activity in relation to an account

Holds for business accounts.

If you deposit a cheque into a Coast Capital business deposit account, which is held by an eligible enterprise, we may extend the maximum hold period if we have reasonable grounds to believe that there is a material increased credit risk.

(For the purpose of this policy, “eligible enterprise” includes businesses with authorized credit of less than $1 million, fewer than 500 employees, and annual revenues of less than $50 million.)

Factors that can influence the hold-funds period.

The length of time you have been a member of Coast Capital, the amount of funds currently held in your account, and the amount and characteristics of the cheque being deposited may all influence whether the funds will be held. In some circumstances cheques may be sent to “collection”, which means that the funds will be credited to your account only once the cheque clears the other financial institution and Coast Capital has received the funds.

Your Responsibility

Ultimately, you are responsible for any cheque that you deposit. If we must return a cheque for any reason, we will remove the funds from your account. Cheques may be returned if they are drawn on an account with non-sufficient funds (NSF) or on a closed account, or in response to a stop payment request. This may happen even after the maximum hold period on a cheque expires.