Posted versus cleared

My experience with banks on the West coast is that deposits made in person -- with a teller -- are available immediately, while deposits made through an ATM may take /up to/ two business days to become available. And, mind you, the difference is not just in how long it takes someone to empty the ATM and open the envelope; I was told recently the hold starts counting not from the ATM transaction time, but from when they retrieve the check from the machine.

For some reason, they are far more trustful of deposits made in person. Perhaps the customer-facing teller uses a different computer system to enter the transactions, and perhaps those "immediate" transactions are more costly to process.

Does this really seem so strange? Actually the two apparently different procedures are very consistent, nothing counts until a person verifies the likelihood of a real "deposit". A person has a good chance of identifying a check as a check ... the ATM machine has no chance of doing so, and doesn't even know whether you inserted an empty envelope.

Yes. The identity verification process is the same in both cases -- an ATM card and its corresponding PIN.

Please read my message again. I noted that the holding period with the ATM deposit starts /after a human opens the envelope/. Once a teller has opened my deposit envelope and has the check in hand, along with the ATM's identity verification stamp, there /should/ be no difference in processing time thereafter.

Just a couple of observations, with the general theme that I think the issue is somewhat more complicated than you indicate.

First: not all banks download transactions that are on "hold" (or "pended" as BofA calls them).

Second: withdrawals can be held as well as deposits; a withdrawal that is on hold reduces the funds available to you but that info (either the transaction or the effect on your available funds) may not have been downloaded.

As long as fi's are not consistent about what they download, Quicken will have difficulty getting things right.

Third: the OFX spec does not appear to offer a straight forward method to handle this situation; I can't find any indicator corresponding to the Quicken "Clr" field. The only related items I can find are the known "DTPOSTED" item (which I believe is downloaded with every transaction), and another item that I have never seen in a download that might be useful: a "DTAVAIL" item (date funds available).

Possibly if the fi's agreed to provide the DTAVAIL (and assuming it is not already reserved for an incompatible purpose), Quicken could use that in conjunction with DTPOSTED to control "Clr" field entries for: not processed (space), on hold ("h"), cleared ("c"), and reconciled ("R"). There would also have to be some agreement then on how/where "pended" transactions should appear in Quicken and what effect those transactions should have on the account balances (Ending and Online) or perhaps if another balance was needed: either "cleared" or "posted" depending on what the Online balance should represent.

I like having more information available in Quicken rather than less, just not sure how easy this will be to do.

I do know that Intuit is aware of "pended" transactions - the subject was brought up in the Quicken Forums, so it is possible that this issue may already be getting addressed.

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In both of which cases? When you make a deposit in person, when does your teller look at your ATM card? And for a deposit? I have never had a teller ask for my ATM card (or even identification) for a deposit. But identity verification has nothing to do with any of my comments anyway.

Then I misunderstood that part of your post; and I do not share your experience.

In my case, the *only* differences I have experienced in funds availability between teller deposits and ATM deposits, *do* have to do with the time to manually get the ATM deposit to the same point it would be if I delievered it by hand to a teller. But there certainly are other criteria for determining the availability of funds that will not be the same from deposit to deposit regardless how the deposit is made; including the amount of the check compared to your balance, what bank the check is drawn on, what country the other bank is in, etc.

Yes, believe it or not. This is Washington Mutual I'm referring to. Before the teller will really let you get into a transaction, she will request that you swipe your card at the reader and enter your PIN. Now, if you don't have your card, they may still check some other identification, but I have not bothered to test that case.

Sort of, but see below.

I agree that identification is not necessary; the deposit slips don't ask for a signature, and it takes imagination to come up with a case where adding money to someone else's account could be malicious.

However, with Washington Mutual, the teller will usually ask the customer to swipe the card even before discussing the nature of the transaction, so I'm now in the habit of swiping my card even for deposit-only transactions. It's a battle chosen not to choose.

Bringing this back around to our original discussion, it's worth noting that even if I tested our belief that identification is not necessary for deposits and refused to swipe my card, my in-person transaction would carry less identity verification than the same ATM transaction (which would require my card and PIN) and yet still enjoy a better "trust factor" in processing.

Good for you. You should praise your bank by name, as those choosing a bank might like to know which ones follow which policies.

[...]

These rules are often mentioned but not spelled out explicitly. I find the mixture of fraud detection, risk mitigation, and regulation to be interesting. Are banks require to disclose the actual policies, rather than mere hypothetical warnings?

It makes sense that they would hold a deposit made at an ATM as for all they know you just shoved in an empty envelope. In fact, I'd say they should consider the deposit made at an ATM as not made at all until they see the money (i.e. the "Show me the money" rule).

However my deposit was made in person, at the teller. Trouble is the deposit was for over $10K ( :-) ) and the account was fairly new. Now again, I have 4 other checking accounts with them and the only reason this was a new business checking account was that the old business checking account I had with them they closed due to inactivity! :-(

I agree somewhat and also disagree. After all we all know that people rarely read checks anyway. Machines read checks - the read the MICR at the bottom. In theory they could read the check and even check to see if the funds were available at the other bank (remember this is the 21st century not the 19th!).

This would not cover cash deposits however....

My point is that no bank should send you transactions saying that they are pending. That is largely a useless piece of information for the customer and only serves to confuse the process.

This is the 21st century. Transactions should happen in real time - just like people think of them.

Exactly so let's fix the banks!

What I'm proposing would eliminate the need for such silly distinctions. But yes you are making my point that currently Quicken doesn't handle the situation well.

I like having less information to remember and concern myself about.

Somehow I doubt that I'll see any of this simplified in my lifetime! I'm as confident of that as meeting an honest politician!

Why do people do this? I mean did you really think I didn't know you snipped it? It's like people who write "(over)" at the bottom of a letter that they write. Thanks for that helpful bit of information there but I already figured that one out! :-)

"My experience with banks on the West coast is that deposits made in person -- with a teller -- are available immediately, while deposits made through an ATM may take /up to/ two business days to become available."

Read Federal Reserve Regulation CC

(a) Cash deposits. (1) A bank shall make funds deposited in an account by cash available for withdrawal not later than the business day after the banking day on which the cash is deposited, if the deposit is made in person to an employee of the depositary bank.

(2) A bank shall make funds deposited in an account by cash available for withdrawal not later than the second business day after the banking day on which the cash is deposited, if the deposit is not made in person to an employee of the depositary bank.

and it's two days after the deposit is entered into the ATM, not when it's read by a person. That's why they give extra time. It's also when the bank gets credit from the federal reserve for deposit. If they make the money available earlier, you get a free loan. The regulation also deals with out of district checks. I believe it takes 5 days for the bank to get credit from the federal reserve.

One I imagined was someone wanting to implicate you in some sort of bribery scheme ... though that would probably be done with a deposit of cash rather than a check. :)

I probably wouldn't either on a regular basis, though I suspect I would make one attempt to say I did not have my card just to see what they would do.

But I think the practice of always having you swipe your card sounds more like a convenience for the teller than much of an identification - I'm guessing swiping your card can get them into your account faster than if they have to ask you for info, or read it from your document(s), then key it into their pc. My recollection is that when my bank wants identification, they want a picture id. While I have never been asked for my ATM card for a plain deposit, I was asked to swipe it - if I had it with me - for one or two relatively complicated transactions.

I still think the in-person advantage is almost totally that the person can tell you are really depositing a check ... with the additional possibility that a teller may actually visually identify you as a customer without benefit of id ... something else not readily available from the ATM machine. I think some bank practices include playing the odds.

BofA for starters. I can't speak for my other bank, USAA, because their only offices are in Texas and I never go to Texas.

I don't know how much detail they are *required* to disclose, but I think you should be able to get information on any specific hold if you ask or look. Here is BofA's general disclosure (from their web site) regarding availability of deposits:

"When are funds available after deposit? Usually on the first business day after the day we receive your deposit. However, depending on the type and amount of your deposit, we may delay the availability of your funds for up to

11 business days. If we delay the availability of funds, we send you a notice and tell you when the funds will be available. A delay may occur under the following circumstances:

a.. You deposit checks totaling more than $5,000 in one day. b.. You re-deposit a check that has been returned unpaid. c.. We believe a check you deposit won't be paid. d.. You've overdrawn your account repeatedly in the last six months. e.. There is an emergency such as an equipment failure. "

BofA also shows "pended" transactions online and has a clickable link alongside them which will tell you about why they are "pended". Here is the result for a pended transaction initiated at a non-BofA credit card company for a credit card payment.

"These pending transactions occur when money is automatically withdrawn (usually on a monthly basis) from your account. Some examples are bill payments, insurance drafts, loan payments and automatic deductions to a mutual fund account. These withdrawals will post to your account the next business day. "

You mean *you* would rather they didn't do that based on what you know now. But that does not mean that others "should" share your desire.

This is planet Earth, where reality says that things will move much more slowly than that.

You have my vote.

I saw nothing in your proposal that would fix your problem and eliminate the need for something like I suggested. Speaking of your proposal: what was your proposal?

I have information in Quicken so I *don't* have to remember it; I can just look it up in Quicken when needed.

Leave your Quicken registers blank ... that ought to cut down on the extra information.

You're more than welcome to assume that I did not do it for you at all. I did it for others who may not have memorized your original post so wouldn't know anything was missing ... and who could then be spared having to read more of your words in my reply only to find I had not written anything else.

Right. We have plenty of crime mentioned in the news lately that depends upon funds transfer, with the guilty party caught on the receiving end.

Yes, I thought so too, and decided that the card swipe was actually a good idea. I stopped writing my account number on my deposit slips, assuming the account would be unambiguously called up, but then they started begrudgingly filling it in on my behalf. So I started writing the account number again, yet still see most tellers typing it in and staring at the screen for a while. I just can't win.

[...]

I've been trained to avoid making deposits at the ATM, but recently my schedule precluded me making it in during bank hours. I deposited my check at the ATM, and when the funds were still not available the following evening, I called the bank.

They explained that, yes, the funds were held, and would be available in one more day, but they had no good answer as to /why/ the funds were held.¹ They reserve the right to delay the transaction, but that doesn't guarantee consistent behavior on their part. For the record, my deposit actually cleared early the next morning.

[...]

Thanks for sharing the policies from BofA. Their precision is admirable.

Footnotes: ¹ Charlie K's parallel reply notwithstanding.

On Wed 26 Oct 2005 12:52:44p, Steven E. Harris wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@chlorine.gnostech.com:

I have never had any bank or other FI ask me to swipe (or even require me to possess) an ATM card. I have never known of any ATM to let me do a transaction without an ATM card.

There is no reason to praise our banks by name; you should continue to disparage your bank by name :)

Well one way is that when I deposit funds they are deposited! I know it sounds deceptively simple but there is no real reason why at the time I deposit a check, a check of how much money is available is instantaneously made of the other bank, funds verified and transfered to my account - before a receipt is issued. IOW if it is done right there and on the spot then there is no other problems to contend with. If there is a transmission problem then and only then would a delay be incurred.

I like having more information available in Quicken rather than less, just not sure how easy this will be to do. I like having less information to remember and concern myself about. I have information in Quicken so I *don't* have to remember it; I can just look it up in Quicken when needed. Leave your Quicken registers blank ... that ought to cut down on the extra information.

You misunderstand. What I'm saying is that I should not have to remember nor think about any such concepts of posted, on hold, clearing, etc. IOW when I deposited the funds they were immediately available. No need to remember any other "states" of transaction. Anything downloading transactions to Quicken is just an indication of the single stated transaction that happened at the bank or ATM. Less to remember. Less complications. Less trip ups and (and this is where the bank doesn't like it) less transaction fees due to stupid antiquated systems!

&lt; snip &gt; Why do people do this? I mean did you really think I didn't know you snipped it? It's like people who write "(over)" at the bottom of a letter that they write. Thanks for that helpful bit of&nbsp; information there but I already figured that one out! :-) You're more than welcome to assume that I did not do it for you at all. I didn't think that you did it for me alone. I don't assume such things. I did it for others who may not have memorized your original post so wouldn't know anything was missing ... and who could then be spared having to read more of your words in my reply only to find I had not written anything else.

You surely do like overly complex systems. I don't expect anybody to memorize my posts - hell I don't. But it surely follows that if they didn't memorize it then they would not even know if anything was missing! How about this - if it's not there then it's missing! See simple. (I bet your write "(over)" on your letters too so people don't get confused about what to do when they reach the end of the page and the words stop! ;-) )

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That may be the current regulation however that's no reason why it can't be done in real time!

On Wed 26 Oct 2005 01:15:16p, Andrew DeFaria wrote in news:UIP7f.1025 $ snipped-for-privacy@typhoon.sonic.net:

My preference is the opposite of yours. I like to see each transaction downloaded as it has been recorded by the bank -- and the sooner the better. If I need to check my available balance for any reason in any accounts, my banks, credit union and brokerages allow me to do that also.

I will admit that I have absolutely no desire to argue the point and would have normally felt obliged to just bypass this thread. But I thought it would be proper, being a member of the group just to let you (& the thread) know there is at least one (I suspect many more) that strongly disagree with your point about downloading transactions. I feel that it would actually be stupid for an FI to hold back downloading a transaction for a day or more, just because they haven't made the funds from that transaction available to you yet (other than VL the earning of interest). (Hey, how about you just discontinue your downloads for 2 days after you make a deposit? :)

In any event no matter however Intuit changes the design of Quicken in the future, this will never really be a Quicken issue IMHO.