Banking & Bankwest Notes

Some notes on how PayPass and PIN transactions work and what account balance means when you are with Bankwest.

Online Banking

‘Balance‘ is the balance amount excluding the credit limit of $100. Whenever this amount is in the negative, we have started digging into that credit limit.

‘Available Balance‘ is the balance amount including the credit limit of $100. You would ideally want to to keep this amount above $100 to ensure you do not accidentally dig into the credit limit. If this amount is in the negative, you are actually going into overdraft and that is when you start to pay the overdraft fee.

Once a transaction is added, the amount displayed under ‘Available Balance’ is accurate with regards to the amount actually available, e.g. to take cash out. The amount displayed under ‘Balance’ takes longer time to include recently added transactions.

Transactions

Bankwest does not process transactions over the weekend, therefore you will not see a transaction dated on a weekend.

PayPass transactions are always under $100 and do not require PIN. These transactions are automatically authorised after checking for account balance with the bank. Does not register the transaction with the bank. The bank is only informed of this transaction when MasterCard informs them. MasterCard gets notified, once the merchant has processed the transaction, which is usually end of the day or whenever they feel like. For this reason, PayPass transactions are always dated on the day the bank receives them and not when they actually took place. Due to this it could take up to 5 working days for a transaction to appear. Using PayPass, your bank balance is no longer a true representation of what you actually have. PayPass transactions will not be displayed as uncleared funds as banks do not know about them until they are passed through from MasterCard. In case of fraud, Bankwest does not handle the claim directly. It is MasterCard who handles the claim and they have access to these information.

CHIP n PIN transactions are the ones you need to provide your PIN for. These transactions contact the bank directly for authorisation. Due to this, they are also immediately processed and the transactions are dated the same day it took place. Exception to this rule is the weekend transactions. They are dated first working day after the weekend/long weekend.