A BILL to amend and reenact section thirty-five, article four, chapter thirty-one-a of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to allowing banks to store records of checks and other documents by use of nonerasable optical image disks or by other records retention methods approved by the commissioner of banking.

Any banking institution may cause to be copied or reproduced, by any photographic, photostatic, microphotographic or other by similar miniature photographic process or by nonerasable optical image disks (commonly referred to as compact disks) or by other records retention technology approved by rule of the commissioner of banking, all or any number of its checks, and all or any part of its documents, books, records, correspondence and all other instruments, papers and writings, in any manner relating to the operation of its business, other than its notes, bonds, mortgages and other securities and investments, and may substitute such copies or reproductions either in positive or negative form for the originals thereof. Thereafter, such copy or reproduction in the form of a positive print thereof, shall be deemed for all purposes to be an original counterpart of and shall have the same force and effect as the original thereof and shall be admissible in evidence in all courts and administrative agencies in this state, to the same extent, and for the same purposes as the original thereof, and the banking institution may destroy or otherwise dispose of the original. But every banking institution shall retain either the originals or such copies or reproductions of its records of final entry, including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, cards used under the card system and deposit tickets for deposits made, for a period of at least six years from the date of the last entry on such books or the date of making of such deposit tickets and card records, or, in the case of a banking institution exercising trust or fiduciary powers, until the expiration of six years from the date of termination of any trust or fiduciary relationship by a final accounting, release, court decree or other proper means of termination.