Learn more about Check 21
Check 21 will accelerate the shift to
electronic processing.
Find out what it means for you.
The "Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act," commonly referred to as Check 21, went into effect October 28, 2004.
Created in response to the events of 9/11, the new law is designed to improve the efficiency of the nation's payment system by encouraging the use of electronic check processing. That will conserve the nation's resources, reduce errors and more importantly, reduce fraud.
Check 21 may affect your banking service in number of ways, primarily:
- As more companies and financial institutions take advantage of electronic processing, checks will begin to clear faster
- If you receive cancelled checks, you may notice that you don't receive some checks back. This is because somewhere along the way, your check was converted to an electronic image and this image was presented to us for payment. Under Check 21, this substitute check has the same legal effect as a cancelled check. Rest assured, you will always be able to retrieve a legal copy of your check if you need it — for example to verify a payment.
These changes won't happen overnight, of course, but it's important for you to know what's coming—and why. To get a better idea of what Check 21 does and how it may affect you, please take a look at our Check 21 FAQs.
Why not choose an image statement?
As electronic check imaging becomes more common, you may want to consider changing to a different type of monthly statement, such as an image statement, if you haven't already. An image statement shows reduced copies of your checks, 10 to a page. While we won't have your actual check to return to you, we will always have a scanned image of it - so you'll have a complete visual record of all your checks, not just the ones that were returned to us. To switch to image statements or for more information, call 1-800-COMPASS (800-266-7277). Learn more about Image Statement.
