The Situation
I have an AMEX Bluebird card that I've held for nearly a decade now. I didn't really actively use it until 2015 when I once again required the ability to write checks and couldn't find the checkbook to my other account. Outside of the fact that tons of merchants ban prepaid cards in violation of the card acceptance terms it's served me very well.
This card is largely unremarkable except for one key feature that, to my knowledge, no other bank does. It treats handwritten checks the same way as if you used a debit card.
The way debit cards work is when you swipe it, the funds are put on hold and can't be spent. With Bluebird, you are required to issue an approval code at the time you write it, which places the same hold. But more importantly, unless you write like a chicken, the check is guaranteed to clear at that point.
At first this felt like an annoyance, and in some ways it still does, at least the approval code part. But I'm actually a big fan of not having to use registers to record payments with no way of knowing what all will clear when (since clearinghouse activity is hidden from consumers).
My question: does anyone know of another bank, ideally not a prepaid account, that does something similar? Ideally a bank that doesn't need to pull credit to open a checking account (because I'm morally opposed to credit screening for the privilege of profiting on my money)?
Submitted March 04, 2019 at 09:46AM by mrstackz https://ift.tt/2C2PHFp
