Treasury Services

Redeemed savings bonds moving to image-enabled processing in 2012

November 15, 2011

The Federal Reserve Banks have worked with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt over the past year to make the necessary changes to allow redeemed paper savings bonds to be sent via image cash letters using the FedForward^® Service. On November 14, 2011, Treasury Retail Securities announced that the Federal Reserve Banks expect to begin accepting savings bonds in a FedForward image cash letter by the end of second quarter 2012. The EZ Clear Program will be decommissioned following the transition.

Since the Check Clearing for the 21^st Century Act (Check 21) was implemented in October 2004, the financial services industry has moved from a predominantly paper-based environment to one that is nearly 100 percent electronic. For many financial institutions, savings bonds are the only remaining items still handled in paper form. This change will allow financial institutions a more streamlined, efficient and cost-effective alternative for redeeming savings bonds.

We will provide additional details regarding the timetable for the conversion, as well as deposit options, bond eligibility, adjustments and other operational matters in future FedFlash issues. For your convenience, information is available now via the Image-enabled Savings Bond Processing Resource Center. We encourage you to bookmark this site for future reference.

If you would like to be added to the distribution list for future communications, please complete the email notification form.

If you have additional questions about this initiative, please contact Savings Bond Customer Service at (800) 553-2663. For information on image-enabled savings bond processing, contact your account executive or Check Services Customer Support at (877) 372-2457.

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