Floating Checks

Minnesota has always been a big Personal Check state. This has been changing slowly, but you can still write a check just about anywhere. This is really useful on the 14th and 29th of the month when my account has been virtually empty for a good five days and payday is in a mere 12 hours.

However, according to this MSNBC article, come October, floating checks will be a thing of the past. Apparently, they'll be electronically debited that same evening. Feh.

Well, it's only 12 hours, right? I can buy the groceries tomorrow, right? Sure it's easier for the banks, and probably significantly more lucrative as well. The article estimates that an additional 7 million checks will bounce every month. My bank charges like $32 per overdraft, so that's $2.7 billion for the banks. Yeah. That's fair.