"Ban on interest for business accounts lifted"
The Columbus Dispatch wrote Sunday, "Ban on interest for business accounts lifted." The article said, "The new financial regulatory overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law last week includes a plan that allows banks to offer interest-bearing checking accounts to businesses, ending a 77-year ban on the practice. The initiative, advanced by Rep. Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., does away with a Depression-era law that treated business and individual checking accounts differently.... Big banks generally helped businesses get around the ban with periodic 'sweeps' to move money from business checking accounts to interest-bearing products, such as money-market accounts. Smaller banks generally do not have the technology to offer sweeps. And even when they do, many small businesses lack the cash reserves that are generally required to maintain the specialized sweep accounts. Smaller firms also might not have the staffing to dedicate to closely monitoring financial transactions -- and moving money out of checking accounts into interest-bearing funds. Murphy's interest-checking plan would allow -- but not require -- banks to offer interest-bearing checking accounts to businesses one year from now."
