Treasurer Folwell Makes a Deposit to State Banking Regulator's Finances | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    (Raleigh, N.C.)     The N.C. Office of the Commissioner of Banks may not be a household name, but State Treasurer Dale R. Folwell, CPA, knows exactly where to find the agency. He showed up there Wednesday, Aug. 9, to deliver money that belongs to the office but had gotten sidetracked.

    Treasurer Folwell chairs the State Banking Commission, which supervises, directs and reviews activities of the Office of the Commissioner of Banks. He presented a check for $21,344 to the agency during a commission meeting.

    "The Office of the Commissioner of Banks serves a vital regulatory role in ensuring state-chartered banks and a host of other lending institutions are healthy and under solid management. It regulates and licenses 36 state-chartered regional and community banks, including Truist and First Citizens Bank, that have over $530 billion in total assets. I can assure customers all of those banks are in great financial shape," Treasurer Folwell said.

    "In the same way, as keeper of the public purse at the Department of State Treasurer (DST), I am responsible to ensure our Unclaimed Property Division (UPD) also is at the top of its game. I can report that our staff does a fantastic job of managing money that has become undeliverable for a variety of reasons and is sent to us to be safeguarded until the rightful owners claim it," Treasurer Folwell said.

    "We appreciate Treasurer Folwell's hard work in ensuring these funds were returned to the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks, where we can reapply them for the benefit of North Carolina citizens," said Eugene St. Andrews Jr., Deputy for Depository Supervision at the Office of the Commissioner of Banks.

    During a review of data in UPD, commonly called NCCash.com, staff identified the money belonging to the Office of Commissioner of Banks.

    NCCash.com is the repository for 17.7 million properties valued at nearly $1.09 billion under DST's custody. The money is awaiting return to the rightful owners after being lost, misdirected or overlooked. More than 19 million owners are associated with those properties being safeguarded by DST.

    Through May 31, UPD has paid 174,466 claims totaling over $99.6 million from NCCash. Part of that total has been disbursed through the NCCash Match program, a no-hassle, expedited system that eliminated paperwork processing. As of May 31, DST paid 99,551 NC Cash Match claims totaling $26.3 million.

    Under state law, UPD receives and safeguards funds that are escheated, or turned over, to DST. The unclaimed property consists of bank accounts, wages, utility deposits, insurance policy proceeds, stocks, bonds and contents of safe deposit boxes that have been abandoned.


    Unclaimed property can result from a person or entity forgetting they are due money, or from a move of location and forgetting to provide a new address. It also could result from a typing error in a house number or zip code in an address, a name change, or data loss from a business converting its computer system. As society becomes more mobile and steadily moves to electronic transactions, the risk of having unclaimed property has increased.


   Contact:
   Email: press@nctreasurer.com
   Phone: (919) 814-3820