The Official Bank Hold Times Chart - how long are your checking and other deposits held before available?

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?

According to CBOL_MarketPlace_20091228.pdf , Citibank has several factors: To receive immediate availability for deposits of State & Local government checks, cashier's, teller's, certified, and traveler's checks, then you need to ask teller for a special deposit ticket for immediate availability. Citibank's standard availability policy, effective January 1, 2010, states deposits of $5,000 or less will be available 3 business days after deposit; amounts of more than $5,000 will be available 4 business days. Foreign checks have a special collection procedure. Deposit cut-off times at Citibank ATM or 7-Eleven ATM is generally 4:30PM. Branches vary.

When I am depositing checks at a branch, I always tell the teller "CASH and DEPOSIT". I know HSBC will do this for you as long as your account balance exceed the amount on the checks.

It is a cash transaction to the account, does the deposit held matter? I am not so sure, but I get access to the cash in my account right away.

I agree with the previous poster on much. Depends on a lot of factors including total deposits in hand at the bank, how well they know you at the branch, if the relationship banker or branch manager is really nice and will go out of their way for you. But there are banks which are always going to be worse on large checks whereby even for the best customer they won't change the rules.

If a bank really treats you bad, go elsewhere. Also make sure you understand the bank you deal with and their financial reserves and the like. Dozens of failed banks have been hit with cease and decist orders because they failed to maintain the appropriate capital ratios.

So yes if you have a very stable and steady bank, you can have 5 different customers treated differently at the same branch mind you for the banks. Factors will be based on balances on hand, personal vs business or both, stability of the customer, job and salary, and whatnot, and I know it sounds bad but I bet racial profilling also plays a factor as well as the area in which the person lives. Banks have been notorious for doing this even if they don't admit to it.

They are humans after all and there is no telling what is in their heads when they deal with their customers.

In my case there is a lot you don't know about me and stuff I wouldn't disclose on here. So for that matter, you would be right, the thread wouldn't make sense without doing this thread in a very different manner and that information won't be given out on here if we wanted to gauge actual outcomes.

But the thread would help weed out those banks where there is no chance of getting better availability on deposits so it would help to a certain degree although it wouldn't be as good as it could be.

BEEFjerKAY said: SiS - I think you are going to find it's based on more factors.

FWIW, at Chase I've had as much as $40k instantly available on a single non-Chase personal check deposited at a teller.I agree. I have 100% next-day availability with everything deposited at BofA, which has included a couple $50k+ checks. I know this isnt their standard policy, but I have no clue how I managed to get such a 'perk'.

BradMajors said: I do not think this thread is meaningful..unlike the other 90% of FWF "help me use google" threads?

Certainly, there are no hard and fast rules that apply to every consumer, but useful info can be gleaned.

TD Bank's policy is to make funds available no later than the first business day after the day of deposit.

Heat11114 said: We often ask what the check will be used for. If it's for something like your mortgage, be it at our institution or another we are much more likely to give you the amount made available. If they say none of your business I typically would just place it on hold, because it's probably not too important.

And that's when I typically smile and say "I will just file a complaint with OCC as it will make you in violation of reg CC and as we all know you soon will be unemployable in the banking industry"

bankdealsrule said: According to CBOL_MarketPlace_20091228.pdf , Citibank has several factors: To receive immediate availability for deposits of State & Local government checks, cashier's, teller's, certified, and traveler's checks, then you need to ask teller for a special deposit ticket for immediate availability. Citibank's standard availability policy, effective January 1, 2010, states deposits of $5,000 or less will be available 3 business days after deposit; amounts of more than $5,000 will be available 4 business days. Foreign checks have a special collection procedure. Deposit cut-off times at Citibank ATM or 7-Eleven ATM is generally 4:30PM. Branches vary.

Opened a Citibank account in-branch in 2009. Told the banker that instant access to teller deposits or ATM deposits was a mandatory condition for opening an account with them. Since opening the account, have routinely deposited 4-figure amounts and always had instant access to the money. Recently upgraded to Citigold and deposited a 5-figure amount - instantly available as well (not just $5000 per the regulations you noted above).

grex23 said:
I can't seem to get the banks down to 1 because each account has different reasons for usage.

Do most people maintain multiple personal banks these days or just keep it down to one?

Having 3 different institutions (4 till I close one out) for banking sorta seems like its a lot and it would be easier to consolidate just to one bank if such was possible. But alas I haven't been able to do that yet. Alot of people here have accounts that number in the dozens. Personally, I have accounts at approx 3 dozen different banks. Yes, they all have (or at one point had) a definate purpose.

Having an interesting time with my Citizens business checking account. Sold my building last week and placed the check from the lawyers account into it. First time I ever saw a hold box on the account but said was available 2/9 which was only 3 days so did not mind. So no way was I going to let that much money sit in an account that pays no interest any longer than I had to, I cut dividend checks out of it yesterday, the 9th, After making sure it said it was available. Now I look today, the 10th, and it's back in that hold box with a date of 2/17. The Lawyers bank is local and even has a branch in the same parking lot as Citizens. Will go in this morning and try and get hold off or a couple big checks going to go bouncy.

Any bank's telling you guys the holds are government mandated or anything along those lines are straight up lying to you. I am in the process of closing all my Citi accounts and moving everything to a new Chase accounts and some older BOA accounts as Citigroup as of July 1st will no longer link Smith Barney accounts to Citigroup Private Bank accounts, nor will Smith Barney waive fee's based on Citigroup Private Banking relationships.

I opened my Chase account back in the middle of Feb in conjunction with a Bear Sterns brokerage account. I transfer over 6 figures worth of BOA and JPM preferred into my Bear Sterns account at that time. $1 was put into the Chase Platinum checking account. The accounts are not linked at all, Chase claims they will have them linked some time in 4th quarter of this year. Chase put a waiver on my Chase Platinum account and Chase wires fund back and forth currently between accounts at no cost to me till they integrate their systems.

Then as Repo, Discount Notes, Commercial Paper and VRDN have been called, mature or I find higher rates at either BOA or Chase I have been moving my money out of Smith Barney. And depositing large checks always larger than 6 figures into either my BOA or Chase checking accounts, some checks as large as 7 figures and neither BOA or Chase has put any holds on any of my deposits 1x over the last 3 weeks. BOA as of March 1st when my MRA got converted to normal checking and brokerage account does not make my deposit available instantly anymore but they are available as of midnight on the day of deposit for withdrawals but my broker at BOA is able to see my deposit and buy bonds instantly against those funds. Chase system is like Citi and how my old MRA worked where the funds were available instantly. I just ask the Chase teller to wire the funds to Bear Sterns after I make my deposit and they do and normally the funds are at Bear Sterns with in 10 minutes.

My BOA broker(BOA no longer has private bankers at all, broker does everything now for last year or so) told me some time in June BOA will be able to link Merrill CMA Plus accounts to BOA savings and checking accounts. And at that time She expects that those accounts just like old MRA will have fund made available instantly in case you want to place trades against your deposit. CMA Accounts will be offered to both Self Service, Full Service, Wealth Management(BOA Private Bank customers where put into Merrill Wealth Management as BOA no longer calls their "Private Bank" BOA Private Bank) customers in stages. In case you don't know what a CMA Plus account is, it is basically the same as an MRA or FMA account, it is a brokerage account with checking writing privileges and bill pay that sweeps all cash into your choice of MMF with ATM access. She told BOA will charge a $125 annual fee per CMA account which will be waived based on your balances with the bank. I assume the balance requirements to waive those fee's are going to be $500k+ as those are the requirements of new private bank called "Merrill Wealth Management" or higher as currently Merrill directly requires $1 million in assets to waives those fee's.

Incase anyone is wondering, I am still getting between 2.8-3.4% triple tax free(I currently am buying CA, NY, MI, and FL paper so it is not all triple tax-free for me and I buy out of state paper because it is paying a higher rate over other paper my brokers have in inventory) buying the short term paper I am buying which is why I do not bother rate chasing CD's or bank deposit accounts, and continue to use brokerage accounts and as the Feds starts to raise rates I am sure the paper I am buying will increase the rates it is paying.

I am sure a big part of the reason banks never put holds on my deposits has to do with my average balances I keep between brokerage and deposit accounts. I have a felling if they see you have say $500k worth of stock, and you deposit a bad check for $200k they are not worried about collecting the funds from you if you withdraw that money as they can liquidate your brokerage accounts to cover the bad check. Even in the new Chase account all my deposits have always been for an amount smaller than what I have with Chase between Bear Sterns and the $1 I keep on deposit in my Chase Platinum checking account. So Chase system must somehow see my Bear Sterns balances or something as the tellers do not over ride the holds either I think the system does it automatically as I have made deposits at a couple of different Chase branches.