Why is money not credited to a bank card immediately?

Question

Payment systems

The question is not quite on the topic of habr, but it was always interesting.

Almost in all banks - if you transfer money to a plastic card directly at the bank's office (which holds the card), then the money does not go to the account immediately, but after n-hours.

Where does the money go for these n-hours and why does it take so long to go?

I would also understand if only large amounts were delayed - checks and all that, but this is the situation with all transfers (from the cache to the card).

Or is the bank just pausing to scroll through that money? But then, after all, n-hours are very few ...

Answer 1

Card transactions can technically be processed by one system, while the cashier to whom you gave them a completely different one hangs on the monitor. For Russia this is less likely, for foreign countries it is more likely.
Moreover, these systems are often located in different banks, and between them there may be not online interfaces, but file ones, where the download is once an hour, once a day, and so on.
And these miracles, which are very likely, work at the limit of the available hardware, which is why you will have to leave some time between loading and processing data, shifting "heavy" processes to periods of the least load on the system.
And when you deposit money in cash-in at an ATM with a bill acceptor, then there is some chance that your bank in such a scheme will process the transfer at least in the same system that authorizes transactions, and faster.

Answer 2

I've never seen a situation like the one described.
I use Avangard and Promsvyazbank, all transactions are instant.
I put money on the card at the branch, I immediately received an SMS, I can immediately withdraw it from the ATM at the exit. Similarly with Internet banking - all movements are immediately visible.
Probably it is necessary to choose normal banks for service?
PS what kind of bank?

Answer 3

It's kind of like mail. You put the letter in the mailbox, and the postman comes 3-4 times a day to pick up all the letters at once.
But not all banks are like that. I have one card for instant crediting through the cash-in terminal.

Answer 4

Really it is like this:
There is an account, there are 2 types of money: blocked and not blocked.
Blocked money is the money for which transactions exist. Each bank maintains accounts in its own system, interest is kept on each account, etc. ...
From about 0:00 to 4:00, all (actually I'm lying, not all) blocked transactions are processed: they are “packed” into one transaction for a specific bank. (>>> In my opinion, or at least it should be like this<<<) All transactions are conducted through some one main point (bank). There are different money laundering mechanisms (by the way, these same money laundering mechanisms are also in the banks themselves).
Also, do not forget, one transfer between banks is worth something, and if you “throw” money between banks with each transaction, it will not only be stupid, but also expensive to use banks + failures, etc. ... Between all this, the bank accepts transactions from other banks.
After all these frauds, there is all sorts of information leaking into the "archive" so that the banking system is "fresh" in the morning. :-)
The number of transactions can be VERY large, so this should also be taken into account that processing of all this cannot go on one processor :-).
Then, at night, the bank recalculates different percentages for you and throws any other beard on your transactions (believe it A LOT!).
I could talk for a long time, but it's time to sleep.
By the way, money transfer companies once appeared, where they used only that method of sending transactions, where they collected a lot of money in one camp and transferred this pile of money to another country.

Answer 5

As in my bank that I use.
If I put money at the cash desk directly on the card (with the card through the terminal and entering the pin) or directly to the cash-in ATM, then the money arrives in the account instantly (an SMS arrives).
But if money is credited at the cash desk without using a card, then they go to the account (to which the card is linked) and become available only by 15:00.

Answer 6

People answered about the process, I will comment on the author’s guess:
In order to “scroll” money and get income, they do not need to be frozen.
Nothing prevents banks from using all the money that simply lies in the accounts, which they do.
Moreover, even those that are no longer there.

Answer 7

Depends on the processing center to which the card issuing bank is connected.
For some it is once a day, for some it is twice a day.

Answer 8

Apparently it depends on the bank, I'm from Estonia, SEB bank.
Set up SMS notification when money arrives.
Many times I deposited money directly at the bank office and always a notification came at the same second as the money was deposited to me.

Answer 9

There are also ATMs that accept cash.
In this case, the entire amount immediately appears on your card.

Answer 10

If we take exactly such a situation as you described (depositing cash through the cash desk to an account with a card in the office of the bank that issued it), then there can be only one answer. This is how the information system (ABS) of this bank works (and / or is designed) badly. There is no blocking of funds, no additional checks, everything has already been checked by bank employees. There is no reason to carry out this operation offline, and not online, other than technical ones. And by the way, the bank cannot “twist” your money until it is in your account.

Answer 11

How glad I am that I recently chose the right bank, where everything happens instantly. What is cash transfer through the cash desk, what are transfers within the bank. Anytime, even Sunday evenings. Instant free sms notifications...
Before that, I used the services of a bank where I had to wait the whole day (more on weekends) to transfer money from my account in the Internet bank to my own account in the same Internet bank :) They apparently did all the transfers manually... And sms paid :(

Answer 12

Small banks do not have their own processing center. they perform operations not locally. Most often they buy this service. And in the company in which I worked, the processing of the operation took place 3 times a day at 12:00, at 15:00 and overnight processing at 3:00 (clearing). Those. in the intervals between control points, the money does not really move, the system of freezing and accounting for money imitates the movement.
I advise you to get acquainted en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3
If there have been strong changes in this area, correct me.

Answer 13

Sber. Replenishment of the account in the branch. SMS came 5 seconds after pressing the "OK" button on the terminal.

Answer 14

In Raffeisen-Aval (Ukraine), when replenishing through a cash-in terminal, an SMS about the receipt of money to the account arrives before the terminal spit out the card. However, when replenishing through the cashier, there is a regular replenishment (within a day) and a quick one (5 UAH, within an hour). I don’t know what this difference is connected with, cashiers are also partisans.

Answer 15

I use Swedbank services in Lithuania. Crediting to the account through the cash-in terminal or through the window occurs instantly. Transfer from another account in the same bank takes ~ 5 minutes at any time of the day. I used to use SEB, it was inconvenient for them (crediting up to 3 hours on weekdays and so on)

Answer 16

In my opinion, the comparison is incorrect. In nature, there are no 2 identical banks.
They can solve the same problem in different ways and on different hardware. Plus, system architects can set different requirements.
There are more than 1300 banks in the Russian Federation (according to the BIC directory), and processing in a small bank can be on a machine that allows you to carry out all client transactions in real-time, and in some regional Sberbank processing can first be accepted for processing, transfer data to the central processing… and one operation may take several minutes, etc.

Answer 17

It’s also a mystery to me, to be honest, for 3 days now there has been no money, which I sent via Qiwi to a Sber card. It comes to the thought that this money is walking on the stock exchanges, and when a percentage of income is credited, the money is given to you, and the bank keeps the income.