In essence, counter credit refers to when you’ve made a deposit into your bank account. Sometimes, it’s called a counter deposit. It’s where you have put money into your bank or other account through a financial institution (which could be a place like a bank or a money transfer service).
If you make any transaction in this way, it can often appear on your bank statement as a counter credit transaction. So, there’s no need to panic if you ever see this! There is however, far more to counter credit transactions than just this.
The Benefits Of Counter Credit Transactions
There are many people that still deal primarily in cash, and as a result – they need to find a way to transfer physical cash into their bank account. There are various ways to do this, but counter credit is the best and safest way to conduct such a transaction.
When you’re moving money from cash into your bank account, doing it at a counter with a real teller or bank employee – you are not worried about if your cash is going to be lost in the transaction.
You should be able to get a receipt of your transaction, so if for any reason your cash does not reach your bank account – you can prove that it should have, and generally receive the money back.
If you were to use an ATM to deposit cash into your bank account, you don’t have this peace of mind. If the transaction is successful, you can receive a receipt for it – but there can be situations where your cash is eaten by the machine and you’ve got absolutely no way of proving that you deposited your cash.
When you’re dealing with large sums of cash too, this can be absolutely devastating – so ensuring that this transaction is done safely is incredibly important.
Moreover, ATMs have been known to suck up people’s bank cards – so you could end up in a situation where you’ve not only lost your bank card, but you’ve lost the cash you were hoping to deposit too! Yikes!
In the modern era, where online and mobile banking has become increasingly more popular, most people have opted to go digital and very rarely deal in cash. Digital banking allows you to move money in large amounts, generally safely, and with evidence of transactions. However, no technology is perfect.
There have been situations where people have lost money whilst trying to move sums of money to another account and the system has simply not registered it – with no evidence of the transaction, the likelihood of reimbursement is very low. In this instance, using cash and therefore counter credit transactions are a much better option.
With technology, people have also swayed towards apps and money moving systems like PayPal. PayPal is a great way to move money and they have safe systems if you were to require a reimbursement or raise a dispute with a seller on websites such as eBay.
However, much like every other digital banking platform – it can never be 100% safe. It’s possible that someone can hack into your account, steal your password and move money or use your email to make purchases online using PayPal. Another reason why in-person transactions might be a better way to go!
Disadvantages Of Counter Credit Transactions
With all these examples we’ve provided above of financial horror stories, you might think you’re definitely going to lean more towards counter credit transactions – but they’re not without some flaws too.
First, you have to consider that it’s unlikely that financial institutions are always open 24/7. The one and perhaps best benefit of digital banking is that you can move money around at your own convenience.
As technology has moved on and the banking apps have advanced, we’ve been able for a while to deposit checks into our bank accounts or other financial accounts, subject to who it is of course.
This means that, particularly at crazy times such as Thanksgiving or Christmas when the stores are all closed – you can deposit important amounts of money from the comfort of your own home, without the need to wait for the bank to open.
Speaking of the comfort of your own home, at times where we may need to remain home due to illness perhaps or bad conditions outdoors – you can safely sit back and relax with the knowledge that your digital bank account is doing the work for you.
Another thing to consider is the time it takes. If you need to go in person, there’s a strong possibility that you’ll be waiting in line to be seen and have to wait around for a long while. If you’ve got the time for that, fantastic! But for some of us, that is simply not an option and you don’t have time for this.
Time can mean money if you need to get to work, or maybe you need to get your kids from school – the point is, we can’t afford to wait around!
It’s also important to note that if you’re hoping to deposit a large sum of money, you’ll have to gamble on taking it to the teller without losing it – or worse! This is where it gets worrying for some people who need to deposit big amounts of money and why digital banking systems might be a much better option.
Human error is also something to take into account. None of us are perfect and an employee at a financial institution might miscount the money you’re hoping to deposit, you might have miscounted the amount of money, the employee might make an error on the documents or on their systems – there’s plenty of scope for a problem.
When you make a deposit online, there are possibilities for error but they are lessened. Prior to confirmation of deposit, your app or online banking system will bring up a screen that asks you to confirm the transaction – this will include the bank account, the name, the amount of money etc. In this scenario, the only person who can make the error is yourself.
Summary
Reading things on our bank statement that we don’t fully understand can be frightening, but if you see counter credit or counter deposit, it’s not a bad thing and you don’t need to worry about it!
There are advantages to banking in this way, but there are also huge disadvantages. The best way to think about it is, however you feel comfortable moving your money around – that is the way you should continue.
For many of us, we deposit money and conduct our banking transactions in a variety of ways. This style of blended banking, where some are in person and some are online, can make us feel safer with our money – and when it comes right down to it, being safe is the most important thing with our money!
Hi, my name is Deborah White, and I love to save money where possible. I will be the first person to admit that I am frugal, but when you have three children and two low income salaries, saving money makes all the difference. This is why I decided to set up this site, to help others save money too.
