Understanding our Hold Policy on Cheque Deposits

Deposits to any Personal Deposit Account

When you deposit a cheque1 in your Personal Deposit Account, either through a CIBC branch or a CIBC bank machine, a fixed waiting period may apply for your cheque to clear before the funds are available to you. Funds will be credited to your account at the time of deposit, but you may not be able to access them for a set time period. The length of the hold period for a cheque depends on the type of cheque and other factors.

• For a Canadian dollar cheque drawn on a financial institution's branch located in Canada, the normal length of time we will hold funds is 5 business days; the maximum hold period is 7 business days2
• For a non-Canadian dollar cheque drawn on a financial institution's branch located in Canada, the normal length of time we will hold funds is 10 business days; the maximum hold period is 20 business days2
• For a non-Canadian dollar cheque drawn on a financial institution's branch located outside of Canada, the normal length of time we will hold funds is 15 business days; the maximum hold period is estimated to be 30 business days3

CIBC's Hold Policy and Access to Deposited Funds Limit are subject to the Personal Account Agreement, which governs your account. For example, if a cheque you deposit is returned to CIBC unpaid for any reason, either during or after the expiry of the applicable hold period, CIBC still has the right to charge the amount of the cheque to your account.

1 "Cheque" for purposes of this policy, also includes certified cheques, bank drafts, money orders and other instruments.

2 CIBC may extend the maximum hold period in exceptional circumstances, including (but not limited to) where (i) CIBC has reasonable grounds to believe there may be illegal, fraudulent or improper activity in relation to an account; or (ii) the deposited cheque is not encoded with magnetic ink character recognition or is not readable by operational systems (for example, if damaged or mutilated). The hold period under these circumstances is estimated to be 30 business days.

3 This hold period is an estimate (in some cases, it may be longer or it may be extended as a result of the exceptional circumstances described in the above endnote).