Pending transactions and how they work
What are pending transactions?
Have you noticed a difference between your account balance and your available funds?
The difference may be due to a pending transaction.
Payments, cash withdrawals or deposits can sometimes appear as pending on your account until the transaction is fully processed.
This can cause some confusion as you may think that a payment hasn’t been successful, or you might have been charged for something twice.
Here's some information to help you understand pending transactions and the steps to raise a dispute.
How pending transactions work
When a transaction is authorised it is confirming to the merchant your card is valid and there’s money in your account to pay for what you’re buying.
The transaction amount is then deducted from your available funds and the transaction shows as pending on your account until the payment process is complete.
The amount marked as pending is deducted from the available funds not your account balance.
If you want to know how much money you have available in your account look at your available funds.
Pending transactions generally take three to five business days to process. Some can take up to 10 business days.
Pre-authorised payments may take longer.
If you allow a merchant to use your card for pre-authorised payments, things like a security deposit for a hotel booking or car hire, expect to wait up to 7 days for your available balance to be adjusted.
In some instances we may authorise your card transaction but the merchant may not process the transaction immediately.
E.g. you order two items costing $20.00 each and the merchant asks us to authorise a $40.00 payment. This appears as a pending transaction for $40.00. The merchant completes one of the orders and processes one transaction for $20.00. You’ll see $20.00 subtracted from your account balance while the $40.00 remains pending until the second order is processed and debited from your account balance.