Stimulus Deposits Start Showing Up
There has been some grumbling about the way banks handled the new $1,400 stimulus payments, but the reality is that the treasury did not fund those deposits until today (Wednesday). We can talk all you want about how guaranteed the money was, and that big banks like Wells Fargo and Chase Bank could have easily floated their customers the $1400, but that is never how full-size grown up banks work. Some smaller banks use faster deposits, or even pre-deposits as a way to distinguish them from bigger banks. One article noted that mobile-only, startup, Current put the stimulus payments in their customer’s accounts early. Of course, that’s one of Current’s offers, “Get paid up to 2 days faster.” Doing so requires the bank to use it’s own money to cover the payment until it actually shows up. You can see why big “safe” banks don’t play that. For the record, the ACH deposits into accounts were funded by the IRS as of Wednesday, March, 17, 2021. That means that if your bank put the money in your account before then, they used their own money to do that, then paid themselves back when the IRS money showed up. If your …