Bank Switch Kits

A Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form helps a customer notify a company of their updated banking information for Automatic Payments.

I am writing this post to help define and discuss the difference between a Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form and a Generic Bank Switch Notification Form.

Take an example company, Big State Power.   Many customers of Big State use Automatic Payments to pay their monthly payment.   Big State automatically deducts their

Idaho Power – Example Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form

payment from their bank account as it becomes due.  When a customer needs to change their bank account,  they have to notify Big State Power of the change.

Big State creates a Bank Switch Notification Form so a customer can notify them of the change.  Big State is the Local Company in Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form

For Big State, the form has several places to fill out information that is required in order to change the Bank Account automatic payments are deducted from:

• Customer Account Identity (Customer Name,  Customer Account)
• New Bank Account Information (Bank Name, Routing Number, Account Number)
• Customer Authorization (Signature , Date)

The document has to be sent to the Big State Power billing offices to process,  so the form also has sending instructions and contact information to help with questions.

Benefits of a Local Company Form vs a Generic Bank Switch Notification Form

Many banks also provide forms which can be filled out and sent to Big State Power to notify then of the Automatic Payments change.

Both forms include places to enter:

• Customer Information
• New Bank Account Information
• Customer Authorization

Finding the sending process for a Local Company

However A Generic Bank Switch Notification form does NOT have  details about the Company that the form will be mailed to.  Some generic forms do have fields where the customer could enter this information once they have found it. Others do not prompt the customer to fill out the name of the company or address that the form is being send to, the form is generic enough to apply to which ever company receives it.

If a customer uses a Generic Bank Switch Notification forms,  they will have to research how they will need to deliver the notification form to the company.   Typically this would be done by researching on the company website,  or calling the company and getting an address.       This is the biggest problem with using a Generic Bank Switch Notification Form,  the difficulty with finding addresses and processes and noting them,   especially when dealing with multiple companies.

To be fair,  if the Bank does not provide the user with any Switch Notification form,  the user is likely going to have to go to the website or make a phone call in order to find the Local Company Bank Notification Form that has the address on it.

Filling out the same information multiple times

Generic forms often have lots of information about the customer to make sure that the Local Company has enough information to switch the account,  that means that the Customer has to fill out lots of information on each of these Generic forms.  They have to fill out this information even if the Local Company may not have required it.  With a Local Company form,  the customer would only have to fill out the information required.   This situation is compounded when the customer has to fill out multiple forms,  they have to write in MORE information than necessary several times.

In some cases Generic Bank Notification Forms,   have the user write in the details of the OLD bank account.    For purposes of being complete,  this seems like a good idea,  however most Local Companies simply don’t require it.  When the customer has to fill out this information multiple times,   there is even more frustration.

Best of Both Worlds: Generic and Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form

Two different solutions can overcome the frustration that Customers switching banks go through when having to lookup Company switching details.

1. The bank can provide the Local Company Bank Switch Notification form at the time the new account is open instead of a Generic Form
2. The bank can print the sending instructions for each account on the Generic Bank Switch Notification Form

Bank Prints Local Company Bank Switch Notification Form

In this scenario,  when a new customer is switching to the new bank,  the New Account Rep’s job is to make it easy. So they would ask the customer which companies they have automatic payments with that they would need to switch.  In the case of utilities like Big State Power,  this would be simple to have the forms available.   There is likely only one or two power companies close to the branch that most customers would be switching to.   However it would be very difficult to be able to track down all of the forms for all of the different mobile phone providers, cable and satellite TV providers, mortgage companies, etc.

This is the reason that Banks have created Generic Bank Switch Kits,  so they do not have to provide this service.

Bank Prints Local Company Information on Generic Bank Switch Notification

The bank does already have their Generic Form which they could provide to the customer,   so if they could fill in the instructions for how the customer should send this information to the Local Company that would save the customer time.  The bank does deal with many customers, and is in a prime position to collect this information and save the Customer time and frustration from having to look the information up.

The same issue applies here though,  there are simply too many companies out there and the time that it would take to organize all of these companies, quickly identify the companies that the Customer is using and print out the forms,  is not feasible using paper.

Examples of Local Company Bank Switch Notification Forms

To help describe what these forms look like,   We have included a couple links to some Local Company Bank Switch Notification Forms.   Companies do change these occasionally,  so please let us know if you find that some of these have changed.

If you have any suggestions of good examples,  please let us know and we will add them:

• Idaho Power – idahopower-bankswitch-notification.pdf
• Mirimar, Florida Water & Sewer – ACH Authorization – ACHauthorization.pdf

Matraex writes about Bank Switch Kits as it researches the Switch Kit industry to improve our Auto Switch Kit product