How to name beneficiaries and fund a trust at Independent Financial

A POD or statutory revocable trust beneficiary exists only as a designation on the signature card. A phone request or a secure message does not create or change it.¹

If the account does not satisfy the requirements of applicable state law, the agreement lets SouthState treat it as an ordinary single or joint account and pay the last surviving owner's estate instead.¹

An IRA CD takes an IRA beneficiary designation, which is separate from the deposit-account signature card.¹

A business deposit account cannot carry a POD/Totten trust beneficiary unless it is a sole proprietorship account.¹

The custodian has no ownership interest and must notify SouthState in writing immediately on the minor's death or the custodian's authority ending.¹

An owner signing in a fiduciary capacity (agent, representative payee, guardian, personal representative, trustee, custodian or conservator) must have that capacity shown on the signature card.¹

Multiple surviving beneficiaries take equally unless the signature card documents otherwise.¹

A change to the beneficiary or payee must be evidenced by a written change to the signature card.¹

Any one owner of a joint account can change the beneficiary or payee without the other owner's consent, provided the change is written onto the signature card.¹

On a joint POD account, the funds go to the surviving owner first and reach the POD beneficiary only after the last owner dies.¹

SouthState no longer opens new joint accounts without right of survivorship, so an older account is the only place a different arrangement can exist.¹

If no beneficiary survives the last owner, the funds go to the last owner's estate.¹

On the last owner's death, funds pass to the beneficiary after SouthState deducts any fees or costs the last owner owed the bank.¹

SouthState states it has no obligation to notify any beneficiary that a POD or revocable trust account exists, or that their interest has vested.¹

The agreement maintains the account in the state of the branch where it was opened, or within 50 miles of one.¹

If the owner now lives outside SouthState's branch footprint, the agreement treats the account as maintained in Florida, and Florida law then governs the survivorship and POD rules.¹

The agreement states a convenience signer has no right of survivorship at the death of the last surviving party.¹

An IRA CD cannot be retitled to the trust.¹

Accounts already titled in a trust at Independent Financial carried over through the May 2025 conversion.¹

Anyone acting as an agent, representative payee, guardian, personal representative, trustee, custodian or conservator must be designated as such on the account signature card.¹

SouthState has the right but not the obligation to review the trust document, assumes no liability for the administration of the trust whether or not it has a copy, and is not liable to anyone for a fiduciary's misapplication of funds.¹

Acts as trustee, co-trustee, successor trustee or agent²