We are going through an interesting change in banking, where the increased speed of transaction processing is making funds available quicker than ever before, but also a time of uncertainty in the industry, increased paper check fraud, etc, which is also resulting in extended holds on deposited items.

Here is a recent thread about Citi advising some deposits may have extended withdrawal durations
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/987614/

This thread (and the quicksummary) is intended to be a user-updated list of how quickly YOUR BANK makes checks and other deposits to your account available to you.

To make this a somewhat useful list, we will need LOTS of data points about your accounts, and the specific reasons any extended holds were placed on items...since availability is often affected if its a newly opened account, if the deposits exceed $5000, etc. Availability can even be affected depending on if you make the deposit at an ATM or with a teller, and if the ATM is a new "scanning envelope-free" ATM or one of the older ATMs.

My Mattress / Savings / The slide in / Varies / Depends / Any time

We mostly use USAA online banking. We aren't in San Antonio, so we can only bank online which is totally fine with us. We can scan checks with our scanner and deposit it to our accounts or we can use an iphone app and take a picture of the check and it gets deposited immediately into our accounts. I'm assuming since we have the online account only, we can only deposit a total of $5,000/day using this method otherwise i think we can send a check into the branch in San Antonio to deposit.

Also, when receive direct deposit, usually receive a day before we are actually supposed to be paid.

We have quit using citi altogether as they are very difficult to work with and we are always having problems between our accounts and credit card (fraud alerts).

SUCKISSTAPLES said:
BUT If I take the same checks into the branch, the teller will often place a hold of up to 10 days, and a manager is required to shorten the hold time.

Do the tellers reconize you? I have deposited over 5k CC BT checks at my local bank and have never had a problem with it being 100% avail NBD.

chimeer said:rmhop said:We mostly use USAA online banking. We aren't in San Antonio, so we can only bank online which is totally fine with us. We can scan checks with our scanner and deposit it to our accounts or we can use an iphone app and take a picture of the check and it gets deposited immediately into our accounts. I'm assuming since we have the online account only, we can only deposit a total of $5,000/day using this method otherwise i think we can send a check into the branch in San Antonio to deposit.

Also, when receive direct deposit, usually receive a day before we are actually supposed to be paid.

We have quit using citi altogether as they are very difficult to work with and we are always having problems between our accounts and credit card (fraud alerts).

Yeah same here we get instant funds availability for amounts less than $5000 with USAA deposit at home.

I am able to deposit checks up to $10,000 thought Deposit@Home. Only the first $5k is available instantly, the rest after 3 days. Could be because I have insurance with them.

At the bofa branch near my home, if i ask them, they will make the deposit available immediately (never made a deposit more than $4,000)
At pnc, they placed an extended hold on a paycheck from the university i go to (5 business days) and i didn't feel like arguing because it didn't really matter
at citizens bank, opened a new account with $200 check, said they place a 5 business day hold, 2 business days later, it was available in my account
don't even get me started on bank of the west

i imagine if you go to the bank routinely (that specific branch) and the tellers know you and the check isn't an amount out of the ordinary, they will make the deposit available for you. you didn't say what the relationship manager said. if you talked to a relationship manager (i assume that is the same as a personal banker), they would've told you their policy. With an ATM, there is no asking to make it available sooner (that i know of) so to find out the answer for the ATM, you can simply look at the bank policy/reg cc to determine when it should be available.

Want to expand on my addition to the data points
BofA / Checking / Scanning ATM / $6200 PenFed bank check / No / $100 instant, $900 in 5 days, $5.2K in 14 days

Once I realized they were going to hold the $5K for 14 days(!), I went into the branch and pleaded my case. I currently have both business & personal accounts, mortgage and credit cards with them as well as auto loans and CDs in the past. Even with that kind of history (5+ years at this branch, over 20 yrs with BofA going back to Seafirst bank that they acquired sometime in the 90s). Granted the "personal banker" had never seen me before (I bank electronically & ATM only AND the branch has a high employee turnover), but I not only needed to give them account numbers and such but she even asked me what I was going to do with the money (me: wtf? none of yer bidness.). In the end they released $3K that day and I had to wait the two weeks for the rest.

I can't wait to see how they handle the $30k+ that will wire in on Monday from my refi.

My 2 local banks all state that if the amount is greater than $5,000, the first $100 is available next day, $4900 is available either 2 or 5 business days after day of deposit (depending on Local or Nonlocal or Both-types of check deposited). Anything over $5000 is available 9 business days after day of deposit. These rules are for established customers.

FYI, Brute, bank wires are under "Immediate Availability Rules" at Bank of America. So, it's available either the day or 1 business day after the wire transfer comes in. You may have to add 1 extra day depending on the time of day Bank of America receives an incoming wire transfer.

As a datapoint, but few years ago...Bank of America: check (dont remember if it was considered local or nonlocal) was deposited on Friday, 2:08pm; $100 available immediate, $4900 available 5 days (the next Friday); remaining $18.#k was available the Tuesday after. Go figure.

but was it considered a "local" check by Chase? edit: was it from a state government?