German Federal Office of Justice Not Accepting Checks After March 20, 2023

DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER

DCL-22-14

DATE: November 22, 2022

TO: State IV-D Directors

SUBJECT: German Federal Office of Justice Not Accepting Checks After March 20, 2023

Dear Colleague:

In recent years, many of our international Central Authority partners, especially in the European Union, have shifted to sending and receiving child support payments electronically rather than by check (see IM-21-05). OCSE is committed to helping states resolve the challenges of electronic international child support payments and eliminate paper checks, as countries require.

The German Federal Office of Justice, Germany's Central Authority under the Hague Child Support Convention, will no longer accept child support payments by check for its cases after March 20, 2023. Effective March 21, 2023, all payments to Germany's Central Authority must be made electronically. There are currently two electronic options available for payments:

• Wire payment (SWIFT)
• International Automated Clearing House (IAT)

Information about making wire payments to Germany is available on the OCSE international webpage.

OCSE will provide a third electronic option in early 2023 using our Central Authority Payment (CAP) service.

To prevent any disruption in current payment processing with Germany's Central Authority, states should begin transitioning their processes to electronic payments as soon as possible.

Paper Check Phase-Out

Between now and March 20, 2023, states may continue to send checks to the German Central Authority in Bonn. The German central bank (Bundesbank), which currently receives checks on U.S. cases, will not process checks after December 15, 2022; however, the Central Authority has made a temporary arrangement with a commercial bank in Germany to process checks between December 15, 2022, and March 20, 2023.

Because this temporary process is more expensive, Germany has asked states to avoid sending checks for less than $50.00. Therefore, smaller payments must be consolidated into a single check payment per case. Payments for different cases should not be bundled together in the same check.

OCSE CAP Service

OCSE's CAP service is intended to reduce the burden on states of sending international payments electronically. State child support agencies will send payments on international cases using the current ACH electronic process to the CAP service. CAP will then transmit those payments electronically to Germany through the federal International Treasury Services. Centralizing payments and using existing federal processes reduce the costs of transmission and ensures families receive more money.

Although the CAP service initially will support payments to Germany only, over time the service will expand to include payments to other countries that require electronic payments. We plan to begin accepting state enrollments for OCSE CAP possibly as early as mid-February 2023. However, we will provide additional information about CAP enrollment eligibility and roll-out schedules in future correspondence.

Prior to enrollment in OCSE's CAP service, states must reconcile their caseloads with Germany to ensure all cases have the correct identifiers and that German Central Authority cases are distinguishable from cases managed by the German Institute for Youth Services and Family Law in Heidelberg (DIJuF). Payments for the DIJuF will not go through CAP and will need to be distributed separately as paper checks.

To arrange case reconciliation, please email the German Central Authority at international.payments@bfj.bund.de and copy ocseinternational@acf.hhs.gov for awareness.

Direct questions about international payments or CAP to ocseinternational@acf.hhs.gov. 

Thank you for your efforts to support children and families in the U.S. and around the world.

Sincerely,

Tanguler Gray
Commissioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement