Do you have a bunch of paper savings bonds laying around your house? Did you know that you can convert your paper savings bonds into electronic EE bonds? If you go to TreasuryDirect.gov you can convert your paper bonds into an electronic bond that you can monitor from the security of your computer.
How do you go about converting your bonds? It is pretty easy to go about converting your paper bonds into electronic bonds. Using the SmartExchange program at TreasuryDirect.gov, you can convert all those bonds from paper to an electronic account. The first step is to create an account at TreasuryDirect.
Once you have created an account through TreasuryDirect, you can start the process of converting your bonds. It is a three step process that you can see for yourself here. The process itself doesn’t take much of your time, but there is a delay in the process so that the government can verify your identity and the validity of your savings bonds.
Are there any advantages of converting your paper bonds? The biggest advantage is that you can monitor your bonds 24/7 and can redeem them whenever you are ready to cash them in. If your bond has reached maturity, the system will automatically pay out the amount that the matured savings bond is worth. Not bad for a simple conversion process.
Who can convert their savings bond into an electronic account? Anyone who has legal authority to control what happens to the bonds. This means that any bonds that you own, are the co-owner of, or have purchased for someone else to be the beneficiary of. The only requirement is that the number on the securities matches the numbers in the electronic account.
Another aspect of the savings bond program to note is that you can no longer purchase paper savings bonds through a payroll deduction. If you want a paper bond, you are going to have to buy them from the bank or another financial institution. Since most bonds are going to be sold online, it makes sense to go online to convert your bonds.
Paper bonds can get lost or destroyed and replacing them is a hassle. By converting a paper bond, that bond will be in a secure location where it can be monitored 24/7 and will have an automatic payout. The process is simple, so why not convert those bonds into an electronic account.