The state of Georgia requires all financial institutions to participate in its Financial Institution Data Match (FIDM) program. In this program, the state will try to find parents (non-custodial) who have failed to make timely child support payments. In 1996 the Federal Government passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which places time limits on the receipt of welfare assistance and makes it more important than ever that children and their custodial parents receive the child support to which they are entitled. To achieve the latter, the bill mandated that each state implement a quarterly matching of delinquent non-custodial parents to accounts maintained at financial institutions in order for each state to continue receiving federal funds.

In the 1997 legislative session, the state of Georgia passed H.B. 284, which was introduced by the Governor's floor leaders to conform Georgia law to the federal mandates passed by Congress. The bill became law on July 1, 1997, and gave the Department of Human Resources' Child Support Enforcement office the authority to seize financial assets of Georgia non-custodial parents who are delinquent in child support payments. In order to implement the new program the state requires that all financial institutions provide information on their accounts that match a list of delinquencies provided by the state. To help credit unions comply with this requirement, CSI has developed a service to match credit union member files with the state's delinquency list.

To use CSI's FIDM service, a credit union must provide CSI with a computer file containing member account information on a quarterly basis. At a minimum, the file must contain member Social Security numbers, names and addresses, credit union account numbers and account balances. CSI runs this file against the state's delinquency list and sends back to the state a list of all matches. The state will then determine if a lien should be placed against the accounts that match. If so, they will notify the account holder's financial institution.

Currently, CSI performs the data match for 88 credit unions. If your credit union is not currently using CSI for this service and would like more information about it, please contact Jerry Keenan at 404-768-5716 or 1-800-783-2448.