Federal Reserve Banks share information in advance of next round of Economic Impact Payments
December 22, 2020
On December 21, 2020, the Coronavirus Relief Package was approved by Congress. The final step is for President Trump to sign it into law. The Federal Reserve Banks are working closely with the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) to support the distribution of economic impact payments (EIPs). As your service provider, the Federal Reserve Banks are committed to supporting your institution through this next release of EIPs. Although we do not control EIPs, we would like to share the following EIP-related resources at this time in hopes that your institution may find them beneficial in preparation for the upcoming EIP distributions. We expect more detailed information, such as ACH RTNs, Identification Code Designator (ICD), etc., will be communicated by Fiscal Service soon.
FedACH® Services
The Federal Reserve Banks offer multiple services to assist your institution with processing the upcoming EIPs. The FedPayments® Reporter ACH Received Entries Detail Report can facilitate analysis of EIPs sent to your institution’s account holders. Additionally, the FedACH Risk® RDFI Alert Service can provide early notice of EIPs being sent to your account holders. If your institution already subscribes to these services for analysis and alerting of EIPs, you will need to adjust the criteria due to EIP specifications.
U.S. Treasury check and EIP verification
Fiscal Service encourages financial institutions and check cashers to verify the security features (Off-site) of a U.S. Treasury check, and to determine the status of EIP checks by using either:
- Treasury Check Verification Application (TCVA) (Off-site) for single queries; or
- Treasury Check Verification System (TCVS) (Off-site) for bulk queries using an automated programming interface (API).
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
In the meantime, please refer to the Useful Links for COVID-19 Information (Off-site) on the Fiscal Service website for a variety of EIP-related resources. Also, you are encouraged to check these websites frequently for updated information:
- Board of Governors COVID-19 Resources (Off-site)
- Federal Reserve Bank Services COVID-19 Resources
- IRS Economic Impact Payment Information Center (Off-site)
- IRS Get My Payment FAQs (Off-site)
If you have remaining questions, please contact your Federal Reserve account executive.
FedCash® Services
Federal Reserve Cash Services departments in the 28 offices across the country are stocked with currency inventories sufficient to meet the needs of financial institutions during this second round of EIPs. We are working closely with our cash supply chain partners to understand anticipated demand for currency and support them as they make preparations to handle this additional demand.
Your continued support is needed
While Federal Reserve cash offices are prepared to meet the demand for currency orders, we ask our financial institution customers to place reasonable orders for currency that meet the demand of their customers, and not order more currency than is needed. In addition, the Federal Reserve Banks ask for your continued assistance in reassuring your customers that there will be an ample inventory of currency available to meet the needs of consumers throughout the EIP disbursement period.
We recognize the herculean efforts that all financial institutions have undertaken during this unprecedented time, and we thank you.