Banks or associations may open and manage shares, savings, and demand accounts, issue account evidence, and rely on account documents for withdrawals, subject to stated conditions and a seizure exception.
§744. Shares, savings, and demand accounts; generally A. Ownership. Shares or savings or demand accounts may be opened and held solely and absolutely in one's own right or in trust or other fiduciary capacity for any person, partnership, association, fiduciary, corporation, political subdivision or public or governmental unit, or other entity. Unless otherwise specified by contract, savings accounts shall be represented only by the account of each savings account holder on the books of the association, and such accounts or any interest therein shall be transferable only on the books of the association and upon proper written application by the transferee upon terms approved by the board of directors; and the association may treat the holder of record of a savings or demand account as the owner thereof for all purposes without being affected by any notice to the contrary unless the association has received in writing a notice of a claim of ownership or of an interest therein by a party other than such holder. B. Evidence of ownership. An association may issue to a holder of a savings or demand account evidence of such holder's interest therein and the terms thereof, including an account book, certificate, receipt, memorandum or any other medium which may be used for the storage and retrieval of information by the holder. Savings or demand accounts may also be issued in book entry form. C. Duplicate evidence of accounts. Duplicate evidence of accounts may be issued pursuant to such requirements as the association may prescribe. When an affidavit or written signed statement is executed by the holder of record to the effect that the passbook, account book, certificate receipt, memorandum, or other evidence of account has been lost or destroyed, and that it has not been pledged or assigned in whole or in part, an association, without more, may issue a new evidence of account in the name of the holder of record, such evidence stating that it is issued in lieu of the one lost or destroyed, and the association shall in no way be liable thereafter on account of the original evidence of account. When the association has acknowledged in writing an assignment or pledge of the passbook, account book, certificate receipt, memorandum, or other evidence of account, such association shall remain liable to the assignee of record irrespective of any affidavit executed by the holder of record. D. Proof of ownership. For the purposes of withdrawals, an association may rely on any application, agreement, or signature card used to establish a savings or demand account as presumptive evidence establishing ownership of any and all funds and other credits deposited therein, and may consider and treat any and all funds on deposit in such an account as belonging to and the sole and exclusive property of the depositor or depositors named on the account application, agreement, or signature card, unless otherwise notified or directed by such depositor or depositors. This Subsection shall have no application in the case of seizure. Acts 1970, No. 234, §1; Acts 1983, No. 675, §1; Acts 1989, No. 223, §1.