DMBM121050 - Maintain charges (financial) by IT system: Maintain charge (financial) in SAFE: Returned payments (dishonoured) in SAFE

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Returned cheques

For payments posted to SAFE, returned cheques will be processed by the Automatic Remittance Processing equipment (ARP) in the same way as for BROCS and SA. The Receipts Clearing System (RCS) will direct these to SAFE. Guidance covering Returned Payments where the original payment was banked in a local office is contained in DMBM205110.

Where the returned cheque posting is matched to the original payment posting on a SAFE charge record, a minus posting will be made against the charge.

If the original payment was posted direct to Unallocated Payments Worklist and remains there when the returned cheque is processed the minus posting is made on the Unallocated Payments Worklist and the worklist item is cleared.

If the original payment has been moved, either within SAFE or to OAS, then the returned payment posting will not be matched against the original payment. The item will appear onthe Returned Payment Clarification List.

The SAFE Returned Payment Clarification List is an on-line accounting list and not a rejection list. The entries on the list must be cleared by a contra entry.

For original payments that have been reallocated but remain within SAFE, the item on the Returned Payment Clarification List can be applied to the charge by matching the return to the reallocated payment.

For original payments that have been reallocated to OAS

• Where the original payment has not been repaid and is still held in OAS, the Create Payment Lot function is used to transfer the credit from OAS to the Customer Account where the returned payment can then be matched.
• Where the original payment has been repaid, the item on the Returned Payment Clarification List is cleared by creating an Over-repayment charge on the Customer Account Record.

Returned payment letters will be issued clerically.

Returned Electronic Payments

For returned payments that are received electronically, there is no automatic update to SAFE. These will follow existing processes for creating a minus entry in OAS.

Where the original electronic payment is still on a SAFE record, the Reset Clearing function is used to reallocate the payment to the Unallocated Payments Worklist. The payment is then transferred to OAS as a Hold and cross-referenced to the minus entry.

Where the original payment is held on the SAFE Unmatched Worklist (see DMBM209700), it will initially have to be reallocated to a customer account. If no customer account is identified, a dummy account will have to be created. This is achieved by using the Create Customer Account function and a pseudo precomputer/legacy reference to be obtained from the SAFE Team. Once the payment is transferred to Unallocated Payments on the dummy record, it can be transferred to OAS as a Hold and cross-referenced to the minus entry.

If the original payment has been repaid then the user will follow existing OAS processes to clear the debit and create an Over-repayment charge on SAFE.