Why is there a hold on my account?

Most holds are either on deposited checks or merchant holds for pending transactions. You may see what funds are on hold in RCU Digital Banking when viewing your transaction activity under pending. Merchant holds are placed when you use your Visa debit card as a Visa transaction or a Point of Sale (POS) transaction.

Merchant Holds

When you use your VISA Debit Card, the merchant may place an authorization hold to confirm you have sufficient funds for a transaction or as a deposit for a potential future transaction. While this hold is in place, the funds are generally not available for withdrawal. If a hold is placed for a specific transaction and RCU is able to determine that the merchant hold was placed for that transaction, RCU will release the merchant hold and use those funds to pay the transaction. RCU cannot guarantee that it will always match a merchant hold with a transaction. If a match cannot be made, the hold will not be released, and the transaction will be paid using other available funds in an account. The amount of the hold is generally the same amount as the purchase. There may be situations where a merchant places a hold on a larger amount in anticipation of future transaction or situations where a merchant does not obtain an authorization at all and therefore, does not confirm you have available funds before processing a transaction. Examples include, but are not limited to, car rental reservations, hotel reservations, and online bids. During the time that a hold is in place, the balance reported to you by means of 24-Hour Telephone Teller, digital banking, ATM screens, or your periodic account statement might not reflect that the hold is or was in place against your account. This is because available balances are based on actual debits or credits to your account rather than on holds. RCU does not determine and is not responsible for the hold amount placed by merchants. RCU encourages you to discuss such holds with merchants to determine how much the merchant may place on hold.