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now that is fascinating
Aug. 22nd, 2009 06:29 pmThose of you who know me are not surprised that I am so fond of record keeping that I check my bank balance on line promptly after each time I spend money. Today, for the first time since moving here, I used my "bankomat" card, rather than paying cash in the grocery store (when I first arrived I didn't know how long I'd be without a card, so I pulled out a rather hefty pile of cash to live on till I had a card, as I didn't want to pay the fee for doing a transaction with a human more than once).
As a result of these transactions and my prompt looking at my account this evening, I'm now fascinated by the difference between the bank I used in Australia and the one I'm using here in terms of what information is available, and when.
The Australian bank shows an up-to-the minute "available balance", whcih includes any transactions which have happened via "efpos" (paying by bank card, for those of you unfamiliar with the Australian term, which might stand for "electronic funds point of sale") today, but the list of itemized transactions does not include details about the current day's (or whole weekend, as the case may be) transactions. This wasn't a problem when that "available" balance matched what I thought it should be, but, sometimes, some other transaction I didn't initiate (such as a housemate having deposited cash for bills into our account, but hasn't yet seen me to tell me about it) were included in that total, and it was then impossible to reconcile my account with the bank records until the next business day, when those transactions finally appeared on the list.
This practice stands in marked contrast with what the Italian bank shows on my screen when I log in and look up my account balance. It has a screen whcih lists all of the cleared transactions, and at the bottom lists the "Saldo contabile finale in Euro" (Final account balance in Euro), which does *not* include today's transactions. However, below that part of the screen is another section, which lists the two transactions I did today, listing the store, time, day, and amount of purchase. So now I know precisely what has yet to clear my account, but it doesn't show my revised bank balance. Oddly enough, I think I like this method better, since, presumably, if the total I spent in each location matches what I think it was, then the total remaining in the account should match what I think it is. However, I still think I'll check again on Monday, to confirm that it does.
As a result of these transactions and my prompt looking at my account this evening, I'm now fascinated by the difference between the bank I used in Australia and the one I'm using here in terms of what information is available, and when.
The Australian bank shows an up-to-the minute "available balance", whcih includes any transactions which have happened via "efpos" (paying by bank card, for those of you unfamiliar with the Australian term, which might stand for "electronic funds point of sale") today, but the list of itemized transactions does not include details about the current day's (or whole weekend, as the case may be) transactions. This wasn't a problem when that "available" balance matched what I thought it should be, but, sometimes, some other transaction I didn't initiate (such as a housemate having deposited cash for bills into our account, but hasn't yet seen me to tell me about it) were included in that total, and it was then impossible to reconcile my account with the bank records until the next business day, when those transactions finally appeared on the list.
This practice stands in marked contrast with what the Italian bank shows on my screen when I log in and look up my account balance. It has a screen whcih lists all of the cleared transactions, and at the bottom lists the "Saldo contabile finale in Euro" (Final account balance in Euro), which does *not* include today's transactions. However, below that part of the screen is another section, which lists the two transactions I did today, listing the store, time, day, and amount of purchase. So now I know precisely what has yet to clear my account, but it doesn't show my revised bank balance. Oddly enough, I think I like this method better, since, presumably, if the total I spent in each location matches what I think it was, then the total remaining in the account should match what I think it is. However, I still think I'll check again on Monday, to confirm that it does.
