Have you ever wondered why you can’t access the money in your account? You made a deposit the day before, so you should be able to access the money right? Not necessarily, most banks still operate on banking hours and days. Banks will have the tellers and ATM machines switch to the next business day usually sometime between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. Your teller should post a sign that says next business day somewhere in her window.
Banks switch over to the next day because all the work that they receive (deposits, checks cashed, withdrawals made) needs to be sent to the internal processing center for the bank. From there it is sent to centralized processing center where banks actually exchange funds and so on. It takes time for the work to be driven to the processing center, and so the banks switch over. The processing centers usually work a shift that starts at 3:00 p.m. and ends around 11:00 p.m. This means that your account will be credited and your money available by around midnight on that business day.
Most people realize this, but may become confused on the weekends and over holidays. If you make a deposit after 2:00 p.m. on a Friday, then your deposit will not be credited to your account until the following Monday at midnight. If you make a deposit on a Friday, but the following Monday is a holiday (like President’s Day) then your money will not be available until the following Tuesday.
If you make a large deposit, usually over $5000.00 (amounts will vary from bank to bank) you may have a hold placed on the deposit. This simply means that the bank will not release the funds or make them available to you, until they actually receive the money from the other bank. The bank is required to notify you if they decide to place a hold on the check. You will usually be told when you make the deposit. If the check you are depositing is local, you should have the funds released within five days. If the check is from out of state, then the funds can be held for two weeks.
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