Notice Of Withdrawal
Categories: Banking
While the term “notice of withdrawal” might sound like a fancy term for a poorly conceived method of teenage birth control (not a great family planning method, but an excellent way to become a young parent), in the financial world, it has less to do with making, um...deposits...than it does with making withdrawals.
Some bank accounts require that the account holder notify the bank well in advance of withdrawing any money. In other words, we have to send them a “notice of withdrawal,” and usually has to be done days before we plan on taking out the cash.
Happily, most standard accounts don’t operate this way (how big of a pain would it be to send a letter to our bank seven days in advance of pulling $60 out of the ATM?), but some do, including many NOW accounts and time-deposit accounts. Now, even if we just have a boring old savings account, we might have to give the bank some notice if we plan on withdrawing beaucoup bucks, like, say, ten grand. That’s just so the bank can make sure they have enough cash on hand to give us what we want.
The good news is that, if an account does require notices of withdrawal, the bank has to tell us upfront. So if we’re curious about how our own accounts operate, we should probably check out the paperwork we received when we opened them.
