|
 |
Home >> Accounts
What Does "Available Balance" Mean?
How come my acount balance reads I have money in my account and the available balance reads $0?
|
Untitled
|
 It sounds like your bank doesn't make funds that you deposit by check available right away, even though it posts the deposits to your account. Another possibility is that you've used a debit card for some purchases, holds have been placed on your account balance for those transactions, but the transactions themselves haven't yet posted.
If it's a deposit that's involved, your bank should have given you information about its funds availability policy when you opened your account. It also posts a summary of that policy in its lobbies. You can ask the bank to explain how its policy affected the availability of a recent deposit, and that will illustrate how the policy works. You can also ask when funds from a deposit will be available when you make the deposit in person at the bank.
Debit card transactions, particularly those for which you sign (as opposed to those for which you use your PIN), can take two or three days to arrive at the bank for posting. When the transactions are initiated, however, the bank gets an authorization request and usually holds the funds for three or four days awaiting the actual transaction. This reduces your available funds. The holds normally are propped when the transaction posts.
Sometimes the amount of the transaction isn't known when the debit card authorization is requested. That would be the case if you use a card at a gas pump, for example. The merchant often sends a standard amount (often much greater than the final sale amount), and the larger amount is held at your bank.
The only way to know for sure why your available balance is zero is to contact the bank and ask. Its explanation may be one of those we've attempted above, or it may be something entirely different.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 3/26/07
|
| |
|
Accounts
Article
Q&A
Podcast
Video
Blog
Discussions
PDF
Powerpoint
