Over the holidays I made several major purchases using my bank card rather than cash or a credit card. I¡¯m sometimes surprised that more people don¡¯t use their bank cards (or ¡°cash cards¡± or ¡°ATM cards¡± or however you want to refer to them) as debit cards, since most can be utilized that way. Of course the retailer has to accept debit card payments, but I¡¯ve found that many larger ones do.

The advantage of using a is obvious. There¡¯s no need to carry large amounts of cash, and charges are immediately subtracted from your bank account, or on the next business day if you¡¯re making the purchase on a weekend or holiday, or at night. Actually, some people may find this latter point a disadvantage if they aren¡¯t always sure how much money they have in their account at any given moment, in which case a credit card might be better since the withdrawal (assuming you are using your card as a and not as an actual credit card) won¡¯t be made until the next month or whenever payments are normally made from your card-specific account. But I think most people have a good idea how much money is in their account. The most important consideration is that it doesn¡¯t cost you anything to use a debit card.

Which may explain why banks don¡¯t really promote them. These days banks aren¡¯t really making money the old-fashioned way, meaning through loans. More and more rely on services, and one of the primary services is ATM fees, which are often difficult to avoid. If you¡¯re withdrawing cash and the ATM you¡¯re using is not operated by the bank with which you have your account and/or it isn¡¯t done during standard business hours (usually 9-6) then the chances are you¡¯re paying a fee to access your money. And if you¡¯re doing some other kind of transaction, like sending money to another account, then you¡¯re even more likely paying a fee, and a fairly steep one.