Odd, customer-friendly, online BofA credit card payment option

Edit for discussion of other credit cards and their payment terms, please see this thread. (Thanks to TheBigDon)

Bank of America doesn't highlight the fact that you can make payments on their credit cards from other financial institutions. As a new BofA CC customer, I just discovered that instructions on this are buried in the online help screens as follows:To set up a debit to your Bank of America credit card, follow these steps:

a) Select the Customer Service tab at the top of any screen.
b) Click on the Pay from Another Financial Institution link located in the "Credit Card Services" section.
c) Provide us with information regarding the transaction as instructed on the screen.
d) After verifying that all information is correct, send the request to us by clicking on the CONTINUE button that appears at the bottom of your screen if you are a first-time user of this feature. If you have used this feature previously, click on the DEBIT ACCOUNT button at the bottom of your screen.
I opted to try a $9 test payment this way, and received the following confirmation upon conclusion:Pay from Another Financial Institution

Payment Confirmation

This is to confirm that $9.00 will be withdrawn from your checking account and credited to your Bank of America credit card account. This transaction will be processed within 24 hours from the time that you submit it and will appear on your online statement within 2 business days. If your payment was made prior to 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the day that it was due, then you will receive same-day credit. However, if your payment was made after 3:00 p.m. EST on the day that it was due, a late fee will appear on your statement but will automatically be reversed in the next billing cycle. You may wish to print this screen for future reference. For questions regarding this credit card transaction please call 1.800.732.9194. Outside the United States please call toll free 1.888.801.3723 or collect 1.757.677.4701. [bold added].

I've never heard of anything like that before...I'll be playing with this to see how it works (e.g, can you make other payments just before midnight and have them CREDITED as of the next business day)? Update: per below, it will indeed be credited effective that day, but this won't happen UNTIL the following day, unlike AMEX or certain other cards.


(Edited only to add TheBigDon's new thread, and add my experience.)

I don't understand your post. You're surprised that they're making it easy to pay them from another financial institution???

DirkDIggler said: chase will post my payment the same day i make it.

but with a fee.

xerty said: Won't most CC's be happy to get a payment from any bank, not just the CC issuing bank? It's not like you have to have a BofA bank account to get their credit card.

I think what Dave is refering to as customer-friendly is that part where basically stated "if you make a payment any time on/before the last possible minute of the due date, you are guaranteed not late".

No other credit card company offers that.

I m confused to. i ve been paying my credit cards online for years. My chase credit card from my wachovia account. My GM Card from my bank of ny acct.

Oh...recently i found out that if you intiate your payment via first usa/chase/bank one that day before 5:00 pst..they will credit the payment that day if you use their online payment service.

TheBigDon said: THe only Two services I know of that will post your payment same day are.

AMEX - As long as it is before midnight (I was told once before Midnight Mountain Time, but I'm not positive) on the due date, payment will post.

Citi - Beofre 1 PM Estern, say day posting.

Capital One will post the same day if you make your payment by 3 PM EST. BKoA is very convenient for bill pay linking their own accounts, but you WILL PAY in the end with their CC's. In my book, Citi beats them heads and tails with better cards and rates and terms--waiting to see what the purchase of M will do--time will tell.

DaveHanson said:
Someone who's interested should consider maintaining a thread that keeps track of all the cutoff times and related behaviors for CC payment systems, e.g. the other data points posted here.

I just did that.

I agree i really don't understand what he finds so new and exciting. I ve been paying my boa credit cards bills through wachovia. This thread should get bumped for making no sense.

TheBigDon, thank you for taking the initiative on that.


CheapDB and Buddino, I don't know how to express what I said any clearer without repeating myself. The purpose of this thread is to alert BofA cardholders who aren't familiar with their practices that, buried within the website, there is a payment option that does NOT require you use their bank, and DOES give unusually favorable terms, although it ALSO will post the following day if you exploit these terms. It seems that you are both familiar with this practice, hence there is nothing for you to see here, and you'd likely be better served by moving along.


Speaking of confusion, your answers confuse me somewhat. First, neither the thread title, nor the OP, nor the follow-ups ever billed this info as either "new" or "exciting." It's more like "a minor help for BofA customers who haven't dug around much in their site, and assume they operate like most other banks." So there's no false billing here...are you saying that minor non-obvious assists like this don't warrant a post in FW finance at all, simply because you're already aware of them? If so, I hope you're in the minority here. I learn about a bunch of stuff from threads/posts like this.

Second, while it's no skin off my nose--I hardly have any stake or major effort in this little thread--but I don't understand why someone would both rate a thread negative and bump it? If you think it's a useless thread, why not let it die?

The reason I bother with these remarks is because while this thread is pretty trivial, these related larger questions are not, IMO. This forum is not "financial hot deals." While it certainly includes them, I oppose doing anything to discourages posts and threads that just try to contribute to the group a bit in other ways.

Thanks for the info dave. Is there a good reason to ever pay a CC from a bank account instead of through MBNA?

bluegenie said: Thanks for the info dave. Is there a good reason to ever pay a CC from a bank account instead of through MBNA?

I have one: there are some CCs that MBNA can not pay. Cap1 is an example.

P.S: oelephant beats me to it.