Banking under Enduring Power of Attorney

[Peter Tomlinson]

My brother and I manage Mother's money under a registered Enduring Power
of Attorney that specifies that we must act jointly. For current
expenditure, money (not a great deal) is held in accounts with Royal
Bank of Scotland - that was her wish when she was still capable of
decisions. Pension money comes in, money contributing to her care in a
Care Home goes out. There is a little expenditure on the necessities of
life, and we can in some circumstances claim expenses, so my brother and
I can draw on the Current Account if we provide two signatures. Of
course we maintain a ledger and file of receipts. Bank correspondence
comes to my address.

Today there arrived a letter from RBS advising Mother on "How to
activate your Digital and Direct Banking". And an Activation Code will
arrive in another letter.

After we had registered the EPOA (under the previous legislation), using
a Medical Report as evidence, I went into the relevant RBS branch to
explain the situation - and they did not know what to do. After a phone
call they told me that they needed a Medical Report - no, I said, waving
the registered POA, this is a Court document and you will accept it. I
arranged to visit with my brother a few days later to sign the forms.
They accepted the POA, and I gave them a certified copy. They didn't
have any form for this process, so a handwritten piece of paper was
used. Cheque book and paying-in book duly arrived, printed to show the
POA status, so somewhere their system knows that this is a POA account.
And when I have moved money from one account to another, I have had to
do that with a request signed by my brother and myself - the screen used
by the teller indicates that [1].

So in a day or so I will, it seems, be able to muck about with Mum's
money all on my own, courtesy of RBS's insecure system. Bring on the
proper revision and then implementation by statute of the govt
Information Assurance [2] policy - the ICO doesn't want to move for that
apparently, and refers enquirers to the Ministry of Justice.

The name of David Head, who is RBS Head Internet Honcho, is on the
letter that arrived today. If someone can forward this to him (saves me
a stamp), I don't want it to be possible to manipulate Mum's accounts
any other way than by old fashioned (sorry, traditional) banking methods.

Irrelevant stuff: My uncle on Mother's side of the family was a banker
of the old sort - he handled foreign transactions for many years, big
ones; some interesting ones, apparently, as soon as Harold Wilson won
the election. He taught me quite a lot (my uncle that is, not Wislon -
its a bit sad that Wislon and I were born in the same town). My father
handled a lot of money in his time, too - he was managing an inland
wholesale fish business before WWII, and somewhere we have a bank
paying-in book that showed that one week during the war he banked
several hundred pounds as a result of selling onions - must have been a
very good harvest. (I am sure that, at that time, he was working for the
Ministry of Food allocating fresh fruit and veg to retailers, and also
the petrol to transport the produce - but I didn't find the records
until after he passed on). We have some Post War Credits as well. C'est
la vie. The sun is shining. Have a good Easter.

Peter

[1] But last week I moved money from a savings account into an RBS ISA,
and young man in the bank said that he could do that on-line provided
that I showed him some proof of my AND Mother's identity - which I did,
so he did the move. Didn't need my brother there, apparently. Such is life.

[2] Information Security and Service Quality - Nicholas, Ross, et al refers