Fiscal Service January 9, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are proposing to amend our regulation which governs the use of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system by Federal agencies. That regulation adopts, with some exceptions, the ACH Rules developed by NACHAThe Electronic Payments Association (NACHA) as the rules governing the use of the ACH Network by Federal agencies. We are issuing this proposed rule to address changes that NACHA has made to the ACH Rules since the publication of NACHA's 2005 ACH Rules book. We are proposing to adopt, with one exception, all of the changes that NACHA has approved since the issuance of the 2005 ACH Rules book, as reflected in the 2007 ACH Rules book. In addition, the proposed rule would provide two exceptions to the deposit account requirement in the regulation. The regulation requires that an ACH credit entry representing a Federal payment other than a vendor payment be deposited into a deposit account at a financial institution in the name of the recipient. On April 21, 2005, Treasury waived this requirement in order to allow some or all of the amount to be reimbursed to a Federal employee for official travel credit card charges to be disbursed directly to the credit card issuing bank. The proposed rule would codify this waiver. The proposed rule would also provide an exception from the requirements in cases where a Federal payment is to be disbursed through a debit card, stored value card, prepaid card or similar payment card program established by the Financial Management Service (Service).