Clearer indication of difference between authorisation and payment

[theshillito (Peter Shillito)]

I’m glad it’s not just me who finds it extremely frustrating, so thank you for creating this thread. This muddying the balances between authorised and finalised transactions has caused a variety of issues that have been talked about on the forum. Such threads include (not all by me, honest, but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head):

Pre-ordering authorising the full amount months in advance

I need some help understanding something that Monzo appears to do differently than traditional banks. Today, I placed a pre-order for a CD on the website CDJapan. They pre-authorise the full amount of the order when the order is placed, but don’t take the money until it ships, which in this case is not for over a month. With my old bank, it would come off the available balance, but wasn’t included in the current balance (i.e. what I actually have to spend). Monzo, however, seems to treat it as…

When Pre-Authorisation is not Pre-Authorisation

This weekend I spent two nights at an expensive hotel near London. On checking in an immediate charge of £415 was made for accommodation and a £50/night contingency. On checking out I was told my actual bill was £318, and thus I expected a refund of £97. But this did not happen. Instead, 30 hours later I was warned by Monzo that the hotel had made a further charge of £318…the actual bill together with a warning that I was overdrawn and not to use the card again until I had sufficient funds. Th…

Maestro

The distinction between “balance” and “available balance” is actually very important when charging interest on overdrafts or credit cards, and is something I’m pushing for Monzo to surface (for the readers at home, charging interest or other charges on non-finalised transactions is illegal as they can still be reversed or changed). Since Monzo only show the “available balance” (after authorisations deducted) this means that there are situations where you have no idea if/when you’re going to get…

It’s really bad with overdrafts as you’re never sure if you’re going to get charged or not because the big balance includes stuff that’ll get cancelled later.