Brian – banks still process withdrawals before deposits for the most part. Except sometimes they don’t. I suspect that it’s actually in the order of the expiration of the transaction. If I did some research, I could nail down the specifics, but generally it’s because the bank puts a hold on the deposit until the deposit has been verified – because until it is, they don’t actually *have* that money. Whereas withdrawals (payments to other parties) are processed immediately because the bank does have that money already. From an account holder perspective, it looks like the bank is deliberately trying to rack up overdrafts, but from a banking perspective, it makes more sense. Some of that is driven by financial sector rules and requirements.