Those who have accounts with the largest banks will start receiving COVID-19 relief checks on Wednesday after a bit of confusion with the stimulus rollout.
The Internal Revenue Service announced that the settlement date for the first wave of stimulus payments will be done by direct deposit on Wednesday, according to Nacha, which is the organization that oversees the ACH Network payment system.
The banks will receive the funds at 8:30 a.m., a time set by the IRS, and banks and credit unions must make the funds available to account holders 30 minutes later, according to Nacha rules.
“This is literally the moment in time when the money will be transferred from the government to banks’ and credit unions’ settlement accounts at the Federal Reserve,” Nacha said in a statement. “There is no mystery where the money is from the time the first payment file was transmitted on Friday, March 12 to when all recipients will have access to the money on Wednesday — it is still with the government.”
HISTORIC FEDERAL TAX INCREASES NEXT UP FOR BIDEN AFTER $1.9 TRILLION SPENDING BILL
The Treasury Department said last week that the stimulus checks, which start at $1,400 for every person making less than $75,000, would begin hitting bank accounts over the weekend, and while some did receive their payments, many more are still waiting.
The country’s three largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, all announced over the weekend that customers shouldn’t expect their payments until this week after many people on social media appeared confused about where their stimulus funds were.
A spokesman with Citigroup, the fourth-largest bank by total assets, told the Washington Examiner that it is also in line with the other major banks and is working to get the funds out “as quickly as federal guidance allows.”
Despite the big banks waiting until Wednesday for direct deposits, other smaller financial institutions have already disbursed payments to some customers.
Chime, a California-based startup, had already made about $3.5 billion in payments to more than a million customers by Monday afternoon. Green Dot Corporation, the largest prepaid card provider in the United States, said it had distributed nearly $2.6 billion by about the same time.
Similar to the big banks, the smaller institutions have also not officially received the funds, although the risk of handing out the money early is not too great because the government has already assured it will be deposited, Chris Britt, Chime’s co-founder and CEO, told CNN Business.
“I guess you could argue we’re taking a risk,” Britt said. “But we’ve been told by the Federal Reserve that the money is coming, so we don’t think it’s that much of a risk. It’s a choice the big banks could make. They certainly have the balance sheets to do it.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
People whom the Treasury Department already has direct deposit information with from the two prior stimulus payments or recent tax returns will be the first to get their deposits. The IRS set up a website for users to check the status of their payments.
