Which Banks Immediately Update Balance

colsten

jonnygee2 wrote: »

Definitely right to point out some transactions are 'offline', but these days offline authorisations are very rare. Toll booths and card machines on planes and trains are the only retailer types I can think of that still use completely offline terminals.

I suppose it depends what you use your card(s) for. I can think of numerous other situations where a spend doesn't register immediately, (by design rather than by error). For example:

• crowdfunders which only take money once a minimum funding limit has been reached
• numerous online retailers who do not charge you until your goods get despatched
• deposits into savings accounts which allow deposits by card
• CPAs (although these are the devil and I avoid them like the plague myself)

I am sure there are others

JuicyJesus

colsten wrote: »

I am sure there are others

TFL contactless travel is a big one. Monzo, for instance, just show "TFL travel authorisation", but the resulting charge can be upwards of a tenner.

jonnygee2

TFL contactless travel is a big one. Monzo, for instance, just show "TFL travel authorisation", but the resulting charge can be upwards of a tenner.

It shows the authorisation instantly. It does not show the final amount because at that point you haven't spent it yet: TFL contactless charges are calculated per day, not per journey. Obviously it cannot tell you what you will be charged in the future!

I suppose it depends what you use your card(s) for. I can think of numerous other situations where a spend doesn't register immediately, (by design rather than by error). For example:
crowdfunders which only take money once a minimum funding limit has been reached
numerous online retailers who do not charge you until your goods get despatched
deposits into savings accounts which allow deposits by card
CPAs (although these are the devil and I avoid them like the plague myself)

Maybe a vocab thing but again I think in these situations, you are committed to spending something but have not actually spent it yet.

colsten

jonnygee2 wrote: »

It shows the authorisation instantly. It does not show the final amount because at that point you haven't spent it yet: TFL contactless charges are calculated per day, not per journey. Obviously it cannot tell you what you will be charged in the future!

You are making the point excellently.

The traveller has committed an amount of money that will come out of their account. Only the traveller can know at this stage what that amount will be. Therefore no bank would be able to reduce the balance by that amount.

If the traveller cannot cope with this, they should be buying their ticket with cash, and stop travelling when the cash has run out.

MovingForwards

NatWest recently updated the app to show what the pending transaction is, before it just used to show balance and available balance.

Virgin show balance and available balance on their website, don't know if they have an app.

colsten

jonnygee2 wrote: »

Maybe a vocab thing but again I think in these situations, you are committed to spending something but have not actually spent it yet.

A commitment to spend is essentially the same as a spend - both reduce your remaining available funds.

The only reason people are asking, and usually moaning, about banks not updating balances is that they are (ab-)using their bank accounts as budgeting tools.

It's neither here nor there that some people try to offload the responsibility to know how much money they have onto their banks. The fact remains that only you can know with absolute certainty how much money you have left to spend. To pretend otherwise, and to let people believe a banking app would be a magic answer to managing money, is quite irresponsible.

molerat

The last couple of times I used Tesco pay at pump it never came up as pending, not even the usual £1, then was a cleared transaction a couple of days later.

Terry_Towelling

Ah, the joys of putting everything on a credit card and keeping a record of the receipts (ask your granddad what those are) so that my cash stays in my bank account earning me interest.

JuicyJesus

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

Ah, the joys of putting everything on a credit card and keeping a record of the receipts (ask your granddad what those are) so that my cash stays in my bank account earning me interest.

Yep. Switched to running all my daily spend through Amex (and Barclaycard Cashback) wherever possible three years ago and have never looked back. It doesn't matter who my bank is (beyond a few other criteria - no I'm not opening that can of worms again...) so long as it can pay out DDs and take in electronic credits, my spending is completely interrupted, and if someone whacks the Amex with fraud or whatever (which hasn't happened yet) or a hotel decides to do something weird (which has) I don't start bouncing Direct Debits or lose all my spending power. And I get paid to do it!