Does anyone know what Bank of NY Mellon's EB DLs are?
ACWI refers to a fund that tracks the MSCI All Country World Index, which is  A market capitalization weighted index designed to provide a broad measure of equity-market performance throughout the world. The MSCI ACWI is maintained by Morgan Stanley Capital International, and is comprised of stocks from both developed and emerging markets.  The ex-US in the name implies exactly what it sounds; this fund probably invests in stock markets (or stock market indexes) of the countries in the index, except the US. Brd Mkt refers to a Broad Market index, which, in the US, means that the fund attempts to track the performance of a wide swath of the US stock market (wider than just the S&P 500, for example). The Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, the Wilshire 5000 index, the Russell 2000 index, the MSCI US Broad Market Index, and the CRSP US Total Market Index are all examples of such an index. This could also refer to a fund similar to the one above in that it tracks a broad swath of the several stock markets across the world. I spoke with BNY Mellon about the rest, and they told me this: EB - Employee Benefit (a bank collective fund for ERISA qualified assets) DL - Daily Liquid (provides for daily trading of fund shares) SL - Securities Lending (fund engages in the BNY Mellon securities lending program) Non-SL - Non-Securities Lending (fund does not engage in the BNY Mellon securities lending program) I'll add more detail. EB (Employee Benefit) refers to plans that fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which are a set a laws that govern employee pensions and retirement plans. This is simply BNY Mellon's designation for funds that are offered through 401(k)'s and other retirement vehicles. As I said before, DL refers to Daily Liquidity, which means that you can buy into and sell out of the fund on a daily basis. There may be fees for this in your plan, however. SL (Securities Lending) often refers to institutional funds that loan out their long positions to investment banks or brokers so that the clients of those banks/brokerages can sell the shares short. This SeekingAlpha article has a good explanation of how this procedure works in practice for ETF's, and the procedure is identical for mutual funds: An exchange-traded fund lends out shares of its holdings to another party and charges a rental fee. Running a securities-lending program is another way for an ETF provider to wring more return out of a fund's holdings. Revenue from these programs is used to offset a fund's expenses, which allows the provider to charge a lower expense ratio and/or tighten the performance gap between an ETF and its benchmark.
What you've described is the norm in Australia, where it's rare for anyone under sixty to use cheques. Assuming they're transferring the funds using internet banking, I would have the following suggestions: You make it clear that the the funds must reach your account by the due date for rent. It is their (the tenant's) responsibility to allow for the normal transfer delay from their account to yours. This will save unpleasant arguments later if the rent is late. If you're not comfortable with your tenant knowing your banking details, set up another account specifically for receiving rental income payments and paying your costs associated with the property. This may have the added benefit of simplifying things at tax time. Another alternative, which I think others have mentioned, is to use an escrow service like PayPal, but be aware that these kinds of services will usually charge a small percentage when you withdraw your funds. "You should be able to pay back whenever; what's the point of an arbitrary timeline? Cash flow is the life blood of any business.  When banks loan money, they are expecting a steady cash flow back. If you just pay back ""whenever"" - the bank has no idea what they'll be getting back month-to-month.  When they can set the terms of the loan (length, rate, payment amount), they know how much cash flow they expect to get.  What does [the term of the loan] even mean and what difference in the world does it make? In addition to the predictable cash flow needs above, setting a term for the loan determines how long their money will be tied up in the loan. The longer a bank has money tied up in a loan, the more risk there is that the borrower will default, so the bank will require a greater return (interest rate) for that extra risk. What you have described is effectively a revolving line of credit.  The bank let you borrow money arbitrarily, charges you a certain rate of interest, and you can pay them back at your schedule.  If you pay all of the interest for that month, everything else goes to principal. If you don't pay all of the interest, that interest is added to the balance and gets interest compounded on top of it.  Both are perfectly viable business models, and bank employ them both, but they meed different needs for the bank.  Fixed-term loans help stabilize cash flow, and lines of credit provide convenience for customers." "It is likely a scam.  In fact the whole mystery shopping ""job"" may be a scam.  There is a Snopes page about cashier's check scams, as well as a US government page which specifically mentions mystery shopping as a scam angle. As for how the scam works, from the occ.gov site I just linked: However, cashier’s checks lately have become an attractive vehicle for fraud when used for payments to consumers. Although, the amount of a cashier’s check quickly becomes ""available"" for withdrawal by the consumer after the consumer deposits the check, these funds do not belong to the consumer if the check proves to be fraudulent. It may take weeks to discover that a cashier’s check is fraudulent. In the meantime, the consumer may have irrevocably wired the funds to a scam artist or otherwise used the funds—only to find out later, when the fraud is detected—that the consumer owes the bank the full amount of the cashier’s check that had been deposited. It is somewhat unusual in that, from what you say, there has been no attempt thus far to get money back.  However, your sister-in-law may have received that info separately, or received it as part of her mystery shopping job but didn't mention it to you with regard to this check.  Typically the scam involves telling the recipient to transfer money to a third party (e.g., by buying goods as a mystery shopper, or via wire transfer to ""reimburse"" someone associated with a sham operation).  By the time the cashier's check is revealed as fraudulent, the victim has already transferred away his/her own real money. It's probably worth taking the check to your or her bank and asking them about it.  They may have more info.  Also, banks usually want to know about scams like this because, in the long run, they accumulate data on them and share that with law enforcement and can eventually catch some of the scammers. Edit: Just to help anyone who may be reading this later.  The letter you added confirms it is absolutely a scam.  My boss was once contacted via a scam operation very similar to this.  The huge red flag (in addition to others already mentioned) is that you are being ""given"" a check for over $2000, of which only $25 is purportedly for actual mystery shopping and $285 is payment for you, the mystery shopper.  The whole rest of the $2000+ amount is for you to wire to ""another Mystery/Secret Shopper in order for them to complete their assignment"".  They are giving you $2000 to give to someone else who is supposedly another one of their own employees/contractors.  Ask yourself what sane business would conduct their operations in this way.  If you work at a law office, or a hamburger stand, or a school, or anything you like, does your boss ever say ""Here is your paycheck for $5000.  I know you only earned $1000, but I'm just going to give you the whole $5000, and you're supposed to use $4000 of it to pay your coworker Joe his wages.""  No.  There is no reason to do that except that the ""other mystery shopper"" is actually the scammer." I would go to the bank and just express the concern that the check sent to you might not fully clear. You don't want to spend it until you're sure it cleared. I'd ask for a manager to tell you when it will clear, then confirm after that date that it's cleared, with the same guy.  Perhaps someone in the industry can explain how long the bank has before deciding the check is bad. 10 days? 2 weeks? Really, it should either clear or bounce by the second night.  I'd not risk doing this for anyone. Anyone I know personally can cash their own check, and I'd not get involved with anyone I don't know on a financial matter like this. EDIT - See Littleadv comment below. Good checks clear fast, a forged check has time for the victim to go to the bank and challenge the signature and cashing of the check. The victim can have 60 days to do this. That's the issue, I am wrong, the bank manager couldn't confirm the check was good so soon. Swiss Central bank has a floor of 1.20, the reason why I have this pair is that my downside is limited.  The actual differential is about 20 bps but im leveraged 50:1, which gives me a fun 10% annualized. I bought in at 1.2002, meaning my max downside on an investment of 20K (gives 1mn of exposure), is 200$ and my potential profit is 2000. Creating a risk to return of 10:1. Here is another choice I like, iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond (EMB) Here is the world ETFs I'm pretty sure employees were instructed to give loans to people who they knew would not be able to pay it back. [This](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/01/379332/former-banker-subprime-pushed/) (about chase rather than BoA but still relevant) is just from a quick search but the key phrase is predatory lending. So they give out all these loans they knew were at risk and then packaged them up in investments that looked good from the outside but were rotten within. So from what I gather they basically double fucked both people who shouldn't have taken a loan, and then people who invested in whatever investment packages they were selling.   Now you know more about the technicalities of all this than I do, so let me ask. What is it that they *did* do that was unscrupulous? "First note that Standard Chartered Bank's domain is ""sc.com"", not ""scb.com"". The ""scb.com"" site appears to be an architecture company ""of sorts"". The ""yandex"" email address is for a Russian search company which offers free email services.  The ""standardchartered.X10.bz"" email address is clearly a spoof use of the standard chartered name, and is registered in Belize - a small central American country and tax haven.  The ""yilmazguneadana.org"" is not recognised by internet DNS, so appears to be an email only service. This is clearly a phishing scam.  Do not respond to this email.  Of the many thousands of people that have received this email, sadly some will be dumb enough to respond - the elderly are most vulnerable to this type of scam."