ELi5: Why do credit card and some bill payments take 1-3+ days to be taken from my account, and how is that allowed? Due Date ≠ Date Due?

Question

ELi5: Why do credit card and some bill payments take 1-3+ days to be taken from my account, and how is that allowed? Due Date ≠ Date Due?

In: 3

Answer 1

>ELi5: Why do credit card and some bill payments take 1-3+ days to be taken from my account, and how is that allowed? Due Date ≠ Date Due?

Well… that’s what a credit card *is*.
Not you but your **bank** (immediately) pays whatever credit card transaction you conduct. They then keep track of the amounts and deduct them all at once from your credit card’s account in regular intervals, usually 30 days.

Answer 2

Sometimes things take time to process.

A company can see that the process was started before the due date meaning that you paid it before you were late.

It’s allowed because it’s not really avoidable.

That bank is handling millions of transactions per day and paying your bill is only one of them so it just has to wait its turn.

Answer 3

The ACH processing takes time and in general is a grade period so long as you’ve scheduled the payment by the due date.

ACH processing takes 1-2 days after it’s been setup to be fully processed.