OT -- 90-day limits in the financial world for downloading your data.

[Dan Jenkins]

Benjamin Scott wrote:
> Well, we've seen speculation on everything from corporate intertia to
>  blatant customer-control.  I might suggest getting in touch with the
>  government agencies that regulate banks.  They should be able to
> tell you if it is a regulation, or something the bank dreamed up by
> itself.
> 
> Some starting points:
> 
> http://www.federalreserve.gov/ - Federal Reserve Banking 
> http://www.nh.gov/banking/ - NH Department of Banking 
> http://www.mass.gov/dob/ - MA Divison of Banks
> 

A quick Google search yielded State of Alabama banking regulations which
stipulate their minimum record retention to be 90 days. Presumably most
states have something similar (likely cadged from each other) - and
possibly from some Federal regulations.

<anecdote>
Banking regulations can be arcane. A couple of decades ago one of my
business partners had to become a vice president of a bank we did some
coding work for. According to them, some byzantine rule required anyone
working on bank code to be a principal of the bank. Since we were a
subcontractor, he had to become a VP to make it right. (I guess the rest
of us were his clerks or tellers. :-) Supposedly the law dated from the
late 1800's, so it obviously didn't mention programming or computers,
but had gotten bent to cover them. Ain't gov'ment regulations grand? ;-)
</anecdote>

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century