What if a financial institution doesn’t offer higher rates of interest to non-IOLTA customers with comparable accounts?
The bank would be in compliance with the rule as long as the bank is paying comparable rates to its IOLTA and non-IOLTA customers. The financial institution is required to do no more than pay the same rates on IOLTA accounts as it already pays on similarly situated non-IOLTA accounts. For example, most financial institutions offer non-IOLTA depositors preferred interest rates for larger balances. However, many of these same institutions do not distinguish between very small and very large balance IOLTA accounts. The rule simply requires that they now pay the large balance IOLTA account the same rate it would otherwise qualify for, were it not an IOLTA account.
