Two new ACH rule amendments will be effective January 1, 2002. The first amendment modifies the NACHA Operating Rules governing the similarly authenticated standard for the electronic authorization of consumer debit entries. It makes the NACHA Rules consistent with the recent revisions to Regulation E.

The rules will be revised to include -
1) An Originator that is in compliance with the requirements of the E-Sign Act with respect to electronic signatures is in compliance with the NACHA Operating Rules
2) The process by which the Originator obtains the consumer's authorization must evidence both the consumer's identity as well as his assent to the authorization

Although the Regulation E revision also requires the Originator to provide a copy of the consumer's authorization in paper or electronic form, no amendment to the ACH Rules is required as they already contain such a provision.

The second amendment modifies the NACHA Operating Rules for POP transactions.
The rules will require -
1) Originators to include the Terminal City and Terminal State in the POP transaction
2) Originators to include the Terminal City and Terminal State on the receipt provided to the customer at the point of purchase
3) RDFI's to include the Terminal City and Terminal State on account statements

In addition to editing for the check serial number in POP transactions, the ACH Operator will be editing for the Terminal City and Terminal State. These are all Mandatory fields and if they are blank the ACH Operator will return the POP entries.

An update will be made to our CAP 2000 Core ACH processor software to accommodate the new fields in the POP format. CAP 2000 customers will receive this update mid December.