Most members depend on the accuracy of their available balances to help them avoid NSF situations or Courtesy Pay fees. Debit card preauthorization holds allow members to view pending transactions and provide timely available balance information. For example:

John visits the ATM and sees his available checking balance is $100, so he withdraws $50. He doesn’t realize his wife made a debit card signature purchase for $75 from their joint account earlier in the day. The resulting balance in their account would be negative when the debit transaction arrives for processing, so their overdraft protection is triggered to transfer $25.

However, if UFCU had placed a debit card preauthorization hold for his wife’s $75 transaction, John would have known that he really only had $25 available to him and could have avoided the NSF situation by withdrawing less money.