1. United States
2. Colo.
3. Letter

Banking and banking fees in the US are a huge problem for those on the financial edge. Take this example of my 26 year old daughter. She earns about $30k/year and is always living paycheck to paycheck (in Denver, which is quite expensive). She deposits her paychecks via her bank’s mobile app. If she’s had a transaction denied in the past, they then put a 9 day hold on her paycheck deposit. This hold goes on AFTER she’s paid her 1st of the month bills like rent. Those transactions then bounce, which incurs overdraft fees for the bank and late fees owed to her landlord. And she now has an overdraft which means they might put a hold on her next paycheck - it becomes a viscous circle for which the bank earns money. The hold they place on the mobile deposit: the bank deducted funds from her employers account within a day after she made the deposit. Her bank has the funds in their hands and still putting a hold on the funds (which they will earn interest on) and causing more overdrafts, overdraft fees and late fees. It is virtually impossible for someone living paycheck to paycheck on the margins to escape this nightmare. I could see if being reasonable for a bank to put a hold on a mobile deposit until they actually receive the funds from the other bank, but NINE DAYS? That’s unfair and harmful to the person with the account and benefits the bank hugely, when you take into account how many people are in this same situation. She’s asked her employer about direct deposit, but she works for a small business and they have to pay a fee in order to do direct deposit (more money for the bank). This is closely related to the following regular banking practice: I deposit money at noon. I spend money at 2pm. The next day, the transactions are reversed in time (deposit coming after 2pm) and an overdraft occurs (and then the fee). I honorably did not spend the money until after I deposited it in my account, yet the banks regularly reverse the order of deposits and expenditures like this so that overdrafts occur. As representatives, you do not live in this type of financial instability. Maybe you’ve forgotten or never known what it’s like. The financial stress of barely making ends meet is HUGE, without these kinds of banking obstacles. Almost everything is done online so that using banks in unavoidable. There is no real way out right now. My daughter lived on $800/month pre-2020. She now earns 2x that and yet her financial situation is more dire due to increases in the cost of living. At minimum you could work to legislate more fairness in banking practices (they earn interest off deposits already) to help your constituents.