How does APEARS work?

Cross Country Computer's Abandoned Property Escheat Assignment & Reporting System (APEARS) has been used in support of some of the largest unclaimed property filings in history. Combining hundreds of automated processes, APEARS rehabilitates undeliverable addresses while improving the identification of accurate reporting jurisdictions by more than 93%, when measured against traditional United States Postal Service (USPS) address verification databases. Our ability to direct property to the appropriate state and improve deliverability significantly enhances the probability of successful owner reunification. Looking ahead, APEARS has recently been re-engineered in anticipation of ‘Operation Rightful Owner’, with a wide range of additional features that will significantly improve address quality, verify jurisdiction determinations, update address changes, identify deceased owners and ultimately lead to reunification of billions of dollars in unclaimed US Savings Bonds with their rightful owners. Additional enhancements include the integration of Transfer Agent approved householding algorithms to link multiple bonds to common owners to simplify claims processing and increase total assets returned per owner. While these enhancements were inspired by 'Operation Rightful Owner' and the resulting need to review more than 30,000,000 bonds totaling over $13,000,000,000 in unclaimed property, we are excited about leveraging these new features to improve many traditional unclaimed property applications as well. For example, our SEC 17ad-17 address verification system is now included as standard in APEARS, which integrates more sophisticated data parsing algorithms to accommodate legal ownership designations such as custodial references, joint tenancy registrations, UGMA/UTMA accounts and more. Correctly identifying and adjusting for these designations is critical to establishing ownership, facilitating address rehabilitation, linking accounts, and updating address changes.

A key APEARS feature continues to be our proprietary approach to assigning codes to each item indicating the type and relative confidence level of every escheat determination. This can include specific categories reflecting matches to custom suppression criteria or the US Department of Treasury's OFAC database. The result of this effort is that you have the ability to set the threshold as to what confidence level translates to a valid escheat determination. This level of resolution gives you the control and supporting documentation that you require to satisfy your fiduciary responsibilities. Importantly, this system also allows the right-sizing of manual review guidelines for lower quality addresses so that each account can be given the optimal amount of attention based on the characteristics of its age and condition. For example, let’s assume that you have a 50-year old account that predates the invention of Zip Codes and has a street address that no longer exists, but APEARS can confirm that the city name of record is valid within the state reflected on the account in question. You may choose to allow the account to be escheated to the target state provided the city name only exists within that single state, or at the very least, you can use the APEARS codes to focus a more in depth search for that address within that primary state. In contrast, if the city name is valid within 2 or more states, then you can either broaden the manual review to multiple states, or you can designate those accounts for default escheatment to the state of incorporation of the organization holding the funds. You can sub-classify this universe even further depending on whether the city/state validation is based on the USPS preferred city name, as opposed to a recognized, but non-acceptable, city name from a delivery standpoint. This is just one of many possible examples. It is again worth pointing out that, in many respects, being able to document and substantiate each escheatment decision is as important as the decision itself.

In summary, Cross Country Computer's Abandoned Property Escheat Assignment & Reporting System (APEARS) is a powerful integrated solution that takes a holistic approach to the entire unclaimed property reporting process. No other solution has yet to match our results, and with the wealth of recent enhancements, we expect to extend our competitive advantage even further over time. With regard to Operation Rightful Owner, inquiries for licensing or partner agreements can be made to
tberger@crosscountrycomputer.com.