The new Lost Wage Assistance program that state unemployment agencies are administering requires states to use separate bank accounts from what they use for unemployment insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits.
Because of this, banks have begun to receive large deposits from state agencies that have different ACH header information than what banks are accustomed to seeing. Washington State's letter to financial institutions explains the situation.
Ten states — Arizona, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas — have begun paying LWA benefits. All states are paying retroactively, meaning deposits will be larger than usual.