BANKING/FINANCE : Houshold Bank Tells Imperial Depositors to Watch Out for RTC

Household Bank in Newport Beach doesn’t want to alarm some new customers it picked up with its acquisition of 48 branches of failed Imperial Savings & Loan, but it does want them to acknowledge what seems obvious: Their accounts can remain at Household.

In recent letters to the 40,000 former Imperial depositors who have $1.4 billion in Household accounts, Household has asked them to sign a form that states, essentially, that they know where their money is and that they want to keep it there.

If those depositors don’t take some minimal action by October, 1992, Household said in letters sent to the new customers, they could lose their money to the federal government.

The Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency that manages and liquidates failed S&Ls;, calls Household’s notice “alarmist� because the deadline is still 15 months away.

But the thrift is worried about facing a similar situation as it now does in Baltimore involving a failed S&L; it acquired from the RTC about 15 months ago. From that transaction, about $36 million in 10,000 accounts could revert to the RTC in October and leave insured depositors with little more than unsecured claims in a failed thrift’s liquidation.

Dinah Keefe, a Household spokeswoman, said the company wants former Imperial customers, who brought in $2.9 billion in deposits, to give written approval to have their accounts transferred to Household.

But RTC spokeswoman Kate Spears says that’s not necessary. If the thrift sends monthly or quarterly statements to depositors and the mail isn’t returned, the depositors will be deemed to have “claimed� their accounts, which is all they need to do to protect their money, she said.

Many customers already have approved the transfer, without knowing it, simply by making a deposit, withdrawal or other transaction, Keefe and Spears said.

But the thrift is concerned mainly with accounts where there is little activity--certificates of deposit that roll over into new CDs automatically and individual retirement accounts.