"Overdraft protection" means having a plan or service in place that prevents you from spending more money than you have in your bank account. It helps to avoid getting charged fees for having insufficient funds in your account.
Full definition
If you do this, make sure you go into a branch (or call customer service) to request them to link your accounts
with overdraft protection.
Use a personal line of credit as
overdraft protection on your checking account or for quick and easy access to funds.
Most banks automatically enroll customers
in overdraft protection, which prevents a bank from declining a debit card or bouncing a check when funds are unavailable to cover the attempted charge.
If you can't do this, then get separate
overdraft protection from your bank that does not interfere with your regular savings.
Use this tool to establish self - funded
overdraft protection by linking to other accounts, or create alerts to actively invest extra cash when available.
That said, the typical
overdraft protection program charges around half of what a bank will charge otherwise, so as long as you have sufficient funds ready in a linked savings account.
You'll get your first order of checks for free and you'll be covered with
overdraft protection when you link your First Internet checking account to your savings.
The way
overdraft protection works by linking your savings account to your checking, and will automatically transfer funds to cover should you accidentally overdraft your checking.
You can also enroll in
optional overdraft protection, which allows you to cover an overdraft with money from another account, such as your savings or a credit card.
There might be an annual fee and you will have to pay interest on this loan, but the overall costs may be less than the costs for
courtesy overdraft protection plans.
Do not enroll for
overdraft protection because it is not in your best interest, and do not use the card abroad because they charge a 3 % fee for foreign transactions.
Banks may enroll you in their
own overdraft protection programs, which means they will «loan» you the amount you are short for a transaction.
Because these transactions usually happen through checks or automatic transfers rather than on debit cards, you should strive to
avoid overdraft protection plans that are based only on debit card usage.
Believe it or not, things used to be far worse: before federal regulations changed in 2010, banks had no obligation to
present overdraft protection as an opt - in service.
With
overdraft protection however, $ 10 is magically moved from a linked savings account to cover the additional funds necessary to clear the second check.
You may be required to
carry overdraft protection or agree to other oversight measures to assure the bank your account will not go into default again.
Phrases with «overdraft protection»