What is the difference between Balance and 'Available Balance' ?

i logged into my hsbc online banking , and it says Balance 拢44.41 - and then below that it reads Available Balance 拢55.31 ?|||Balance is literally how much money you have in the bank...that's the easy one.





Available Balance is a little different.


If you've been using your ATM/Debit Card for various transactions... that money doesn't come out of your account IMMEDIATELY. The information of where the purchase was and how much the purchase was for is sent immediately.... if you have enough money in your balance to cover the purchuse, then the purchase is approved. Some of those purchases could take up to a couple days for the transaction to post and withdraw from your actual balance.





so... available balance is the difference of what your current balance is and any pending transactions that haven't posted yet... it's a safeguard to keep you from over-drafting your account. Hope this helped some.|||BALANCE is what is actually in your account.





AVAILABLE BALANCE is what you have available to spend -





if you had an authorised overdraft your available balance would be your actual balance plus your overdraft. ie Bal 拢50.00, overdraft 拢100 Available balance 拢150.00





if you have paid cheques into your account these need to clear therefore your available balance would be your actual balance MINUS the cheque amount until it cleared (usually 4-5 working days). ie Bal 拢50.00, cheque deposit 拢25.00 Available balance 拢25.00





The same would apply to debit card transactions as they can take a few days to come off your account. Balance 拢50.00, debit card transaction 拢10.00 Available balance 拢40.00|||it usually reads the other way around with the larger being your balance and the lower your available balance


which means that there is 55.31 in your account and yet only 44.41 available to spend because the other 10.9 has already been spent on something else but hasnt cleared yet