Trust accounts can be set up as either individual or organizational depending on the legal nature of the trust.  When creating the membership use your credit union's appropriate Membership Designation code (see the link below for tips on using separate codes for each type). 
  • For trusts that use a person’s SSN (where you do not have a separate TIN for the trust), set up the account as an individual account, and use the DBA field for the trust name. (Remember that you can configure whether or not to print DBA names on member correspondence as part of the Membership Desigation Code configuration.)

**Recommendation:  Use a separate Membership Designation code that allows only individual membership types to be created, with a primary member label of “Trustee” and joint owner label of “Trustee.” 

  • For trusts that use a TIN, set up the account as an organizational account.  If you know the separate SSN for the trustees, you can set them up as normal joint owners.  If not, you can temporarily use member account comments or a Member Tracker followup reminder to record the trustee name(s) until that information can be obtained.  (We do not recommend using the DBA name in these situations because if you elect to display DBA names on correspondence in the Membership Designation Code, this information does replace the primary member name.)

**Recommendation:  Use a separate Membership Designation code that allows only organizational membership types to be created, with a primary member label of “Trust Name” and joint owner label of “Trustee.”