ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Recently, the general counsel's office at NCUA issued additional guidance on the E-Sign Act.

The guidance (NCUA Regulatory Alert No. 01-RA-03 (March 2001), available on the NCUA Web site (www.ncua.gov), noted that financial records can be preserved in any format that can be retrieved for future reference. It further clarified NCUA's position on the E-Sign Act, which gave credibility to documents kept electronically.

The E-Sign Act “permits electronic retention of records required by other statutes and regulations, as long as the electronic form is accurate and capable of being reproduced for later reference,” according to the NCUA guidance penned by NCUA Associate General Counsel Sheila Albin.

E-Sign regulations established the formats for vital records preservation. Records can be preserved in any format that can be used to reconstruct the credit union's transactions.

The NCUA was asked about previous guidance issued June 24, 1999 (OGC Op. 99-0443), which indicated that credit unions should retain original loan documents. Albin noted that this previous opinion letter was issued before the E-Sign Act and present guidance specifically conforms to the E-Sign Act.

Further, the guidance noted that credit unions should be mindful of legal proceedings and noted that, as far as relying on copies or reproductions of records, credit unions “should also ensure that the reproduction is acceptable for submission as evidence in a legal proceeding.”

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