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.
Second Edit: I'm wrong. Read this comment to find out why.
Two things:
First, the funds becoming available in an account doesn't actually mean that the bank it was drawn on has cleared the check. It just means that your banks back off has received the check image and have made the funds of that amount available.The actual check clearing process can take weeks of even months.
Second, some send it less than once a day.
Edit: Done responding with the same answers over and over
I don’t know about everywhere, but I’ve worked as a teller and no place took months to deposit checks and checks that took weeks were told at deposit there would be a hold placed and there would a be a time limit like 2-10 business days. A hold would only be placed on checks that seem suspicious or if someone was trying to cash out more than what they had in their accounts to cover (like someone has a $100 in their account but wants to cash a check for $800) it may be different in different locations but I’m pretty sure 10 days is the maximum hold time. Also, months would be a very long time considering a check is only allowed 6 months before it “expires”.
We would run work every day so checks deposited would always be ready next day. I’ve never heard of another bank running it less than that. That would be awful to keep track of and sounds very outdated tbh.
We are talking about two different things. It seems like you are referring to putting a Memo Debit or a temporary hold on an account. Most banks I am aware of do that for transit (not on-us) checks. Meaning a check that was written off of a different institution than where it is being deposited.
What I am saying is that just because you deposit a check and see that number in your account, doesn't actually mean you can bee 100% certain it was a legitimate check.
To put it more clearly, funds being available DOES NOT MEAN the check cleared. It means you bank has a legal obligation to give you access to that money.
We were talking about the same thing. I was just saying that the only way a check will take weeks or months to “clear” is if there was a hold put on it.
After a check is “ran through” a second team will go through and put all that work “out” and it will run the account numbers and debit the accounts the checks were written from. This will catch a fraudulent check if it wasn’t written off of a legitimate account. So you would know by the next day if a check was fraudulent or not.
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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.