AVAILABLE BALANCE
If you’re like most TD Bank customers, you use a combination of cash, checks, online banking, and your debit card to pay bills and make everyday purchases. Your available balance tells you how much money is currently available for you to spend. Different types of transactions affect your available balance in different ways. It’s important to remember that your available balance may not be the same as the balance on your statement, due to pending transactions.
Let’s examine how Available Balance works by looking at a typical customer’s day so you can better understand how to manage your own checking account and avoid overdrafts.
Sam begins the day by using online banking to check his account. He sees that a $500 direct deposit has been made, and his available balance shows as $2000. Sam’s available balance doesn’t reflect any checks he’s written or any scheduled bill payments that have not yet cleared.
Sam remembers he wrote a personal check for $100 to his babysitter and has a $50 check to his niece. Sam should consider this money as unavailable for any future purchases and keep enough money in his account for those payments to process to avoid overdrafts.
While running errands at lunch, Sam buys a cup of coffee using his debit card. His available balance is reduced by $5 right away, and the purchase appears in his Pending Transactions. He also purchases the new bestseller and pays with his debit card, which reduces his available balance by $20 immediately, and will appear in his Pending Transactions. Since this money has already been spent, it will no longer be considered available.
You can check your pending transactions online, on your mobile phone, at a TD Bank store, or by calling TD Customer Service.
On the way home from work, Sam stops by TD Bank to make a deposit: a $200 check, $50 cash, and a $300 check. Sam receives immediate availability for cash deposits, and a $100 courtesy for the total value of all checks he deposited.
New accounts may have to wait longer for their funds to be available. You can find out more by reviewing TD Bank’s Personal Deposit Account Agreement.
Now, let’s look at how Sam’s banking transactions were processed overnight to help you understand what you may see in your own account. All transactions are processed at the end of the business day and are sorted in the following manner.
First, we process transactions based on the date and time that the transaction occurred. Note that pending transactions will impact the available balance, but won’t incur any potential overdraft fees until after the items clear. If Sam had any Wire, Overdraft, or Return Item fees, they would be sorted here, based on the time they were processed by TD Bank. Checks drawn on Sam’s account will all process as if they occurred at 11 pm. When there are multiple checks, they will be processed by check number, from lowest to highest. Lastly, any interest earned or other fees generated by the end of the day, such as non-TD ATM fees, Monthly Maintenance fees, or Paper Statement fees will then be applied.
When the day is done, Sam’s end-of-day available balance is $1975.
Remember, TD Bank’s online and mobile banking services, TD Stores, ATMs and TD Customer Service all offer you up-to-date information about your available balance, and more, to help you manage your accounts anytime, anywhere.
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