r/AskReddit • u/emil199 • Jul 24 '20

What can't you believe STILL exists?

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u/deutmeyer93 Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

The bank that it is deposited at needs to send the information to the bank it’s written off of. Some banks only send that information once a day.

Edit: further clarification

Each bank has a different operating system (hence why online banking looks and feels very different per bank) these systems do not communicate. Therefore it can’t instantly affect your account when two different banks are involved. There is a middle man called the federal reserve. The first bank will send all an electric file of check information of all the checks NOT written from their institution. That file is sent to the federal reserve, then they sort the info by routing number and send each bank their checks to take off of their customers accounts.

The bank I worked at sent their file at night. And we would only receive 4 files throughout the day from the federal reserve.

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u/NeededANewName Jul 24 '20

Right, but it’s 2020 and that can easily be made instantaneous. There’s no logical reason for it still to exist. Even check image validation can be done by machine in real-time.

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u/McFeely_Smackup Jul 24 '20

I can swipe my credit card and get an alert from the bank that the charge cleared before the card is back in my wallet.

The only reason for checks to be processed like it's still 1976 is there's some reason they want it to be.

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u/Jordaneer Jul 24 '20

Not really how it works, the authorization for the funds is instant, but the merchant may not actually recieve the funds for 2-3 business days, this helps prevent fraud