BankCraft reference
BankCraft Glossary
Banking has enough jargon already. This is the plain-English reference for the terms used throughout Bank on My Terms and The Art of BankCraft™.
Account aggregation
Collecting account, balance, or transaction information from one or more institutions into another service or dashboard.
Account verification
Confirming that an account exists, belongs to the expected person, or can receive a transaction.
ACH credit
An ACH entry that moves money toward the receiving account—commonly created when the institution holding the money is told to push it.
ACH debit
An ACH entry that removes money from an account after authorization—commonly created when the receiving institution is told to pull it.
ACH Red Zone
A BankCraft term for the period after an ACH instruction is submitted when the displayed balance, transfer status, and money safely available to commit may not agree. See the full ACH Red Zone lesson.
APY
The annual percentage yield, reflecting the interest rate and the effect of compounding.
Available balance
The amount the institution currently permits you to spend, withdraw, or transfer. A displayed available balance may still include outgoing ACH transfers not yet deducted.
Bridge
A special connectivity capability earned by an institution that provides a useful ACH pathway between parts of the Financial Symphony that otherwise cannot connect effectively.
Bridge or relay institution
An institution kept partly or primarily because it provides an ACH pathway between accounts that cannot connect directly, have inadequate transfer limits, or need another route for moving money.
Committed funds
Money already assigned to an outgoing payment or transfer, even if the institution has not yet deducted it from the displayed balance.
Current or ledger balance
The account balance including posted activity, which may include money still subject to a hold.
External account
An account held at another financial institution.
Financial Symphony
The visual concept of your banking ecosystem: multiple institutions assigned different jobs and coordinated as one system, with you as the conductor.
Geoblocking
Restricting access because of country, network, IP address, device signals, or VPN use.
Hold
A period when deposited funds appear in the account but are not fully available.
Merchant pull
An authorized company-initiated debit from your bank or credit union account.
Microdeposit
A small ACH entry used to verify an account or the user’s access to it.
OAuth
A permission flow in which you authenticate with your institution and authorize specific access without handing your credentials directly to the requesting app.
Pending transfer
A transfer instruction that has been accepted or scheduled but has not fully posted or completed. Institutions display pending activity differently, and some hide it outside the account ledger.
Posted
Recorded in the account ledger. Posted does not always mean an incoming deposit is available for immediate withdrawal or transfer.
Processing
A status indicating that an institution has begun handling an instruction but the transfer has not completed.
Pull
A transfer initiated at the institution receiving the money: tell the receiving institution to retrieve it.
Push
A transfer initiated at the institution holding the money: tell the sending institution to send it.
Reserve
A proven institution kept connected and ready to return to active duty when another route, account, or capability is needed.
Rolling period
A limit measured backward from the current date or posting date rather than resetting on a fixed calendar date.
Routing number
The nine-digit identifier used to route U.S. bank and credit-union transactions.
Settlement
The completion of the financial obligation between participating institutions.
Share number or suffix
A credit-union identifier that distinguishes one savings, checking, or loan share under a member relationship.
Specialist
An institution kept because it performs a particular job unusually well, even if it is not the best choice for everyday banking or savings.
The Art of BankCraft™
The deliberate practice of assigning each financial institution a role, testing how money moves, and building alternate routes around limits, holds, and failures.
Trace number
An identifier used to follow an ACH transaction through the network and participating institutions.
Transfer limit
A dollar or transaction-count restriction applied per transfer, day, month, or rolling period.
Uncommitted balance
A BankCraft working figure: the displayed available balance minus outgoing payments or transfers already authorized but not yet deducted. It is the money not already spoken for.
Vault
An institution whose primary assignment is to hold excess cash at a competitive yield until the money is needed elsewhere in the Symphony.
VPN
A virtual private network that encrypts traffic between your device and the VPN provider and changes the network address websites see. It does not guarantee that a bank will allow access.
Wire transfer
A separate bank-to-bank transfer method that is often faster and more final than ACH but may carry fees at one or both ends.