Awareness Supporting Statement

OMB Supporting Statement

Financial Management Service/Treasury

EFT Compliance Awareness Survey

Background

The Financial Management Service (FMS), a bureau of the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), requested that the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of St. Louis (acting as Treasury’s Fiscal Agent) plan and execute a national marketing campaign about direct deposit. To perform this task, the FRB of St. Louis contracted with a national marketing firm. FMS/Treasury and the FRB of St. Louis launched the Go Direct® campaign nationally on September 27, 2005. The campaign is a public education program designed to encourage Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check recipients to switch to direct deposit.

On December 21, 2010, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a final rule that requires all new federal benefit enrollees to receive payments electronically, and all existing federal benefit check recipients to switch to electronic payments by

March 1, 2013.

In conjunction with the final rule announcement, Treasury re-launched the Go Direct® public education campaign to provide Americans with information about the move to all-electronic federal benefit payments and how they can comply with the requirement. The Go Direct® campaign communicates this change and promotes the benefits of electronic benefit payments. It also makes it easy for check recipients to switch to direct deposit or the Direct Express® Debit MasterCard® card online or by calling a toll-free helpline.

On behalf of FMS/Treasury, the FRB of St. Louis and its contractors, Weber Shandwick and KRC Research, plan to conduct a study among current SSA and SSI check recipients to:

• Track awareness of the new requirement among SSA and SSI check recipients;

• Assess attitudes and perceptions toward direct deposit and the Direct Express^® MasterCard^® card, the prepaid benefit card sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an electronic payment option for the unbanked (although banked benefit recipients can use it as well);

• Test messages to encourage check recipients to comply with the new rule; and

• Gauge the potential number of check recipients who are likely to resist complying with the new rule.

This research is a component of the data collection approved in the October 2003 Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Market Research Study submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) referenced in the October 2003 EFT Market Research Study Supporting Statement for Paper Work Reduction Act (PRA) Submission (OMB Control #1510-0074).

Methodology

To accomplish these objectives, we will conduct a 15-minute telephone survey of a random sample of 800 SSA check recipients and 800 SSI check recipients drawn from PACER. PACER is an FMS system that houses payments (check and EFT), claims, and reconciliation information.

Estimated Burden Hours

Completion of the telephone survey of a national random sample of 1,600 SSA and SSI benefit recipients is expected to take a total of 400 hours of time.

This estimate is based on completing 1,600, 15-minute interviews (1,600 interviews x 15 minutes)/60 = 400 hours.

Contact

For questions regarding either survey, contact:

Doug Baker

KRC Research

700 13^th Street, NW, Suite 800

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 585-2829

E-mail address: [email protected]