I recently signed up for daily account updates from my bank and I have discovered a startling thing: The time is takes for a check or payment to process through my checking account is inversely proportional to the balance. What this means is that three weeks ago when I only had $7 in my account and needed gas, I wrote a $10 check. It took one day for the gas station to drop the check in my bank causing an overdraft. This week, I had $200 in the account when a $15 check to the same gas station took four days to process. Even an "instant" check at Hastings last week took two days.

I assume this means that the bank's software is programmed to hold small payments for an extra day or two, hoping to collect as many payments as possible to present against the balance in order to cause an overdraft.