About Overdraft Accounts

An overdraft account provides access to a predetermined line of credit when there are insufficient funds in an associated spending account to cover a transaction. You may offer overdraft protection to your customers if you meet the requirements and obtain permissions from your bank. Galileo supports overdraft protection for your customers when a primary checking account is associated with an overdraft account.

Overdraft terminology

Galileo uses the following terminology to describe overdraft accounts and features.

  • Spending account — A deposit-bearing account on which a card transacts, specifically, a DDA or debit account with an associated debit card. Supported for primary and secondary accounts that share the same balance ID. See Account configuration for overdraft for more details. In the context of overdraft, a credit or GPR account does not qualify as a spending account.
  • Overdraft account — An account that provides a line of credit to the account holder when there are insufficient funds in the spending account. The account holder must opt in and maintain eligibility to access overdraft account funds.
    • Active overdraft account — An overdraft account that is available for use, such that all qualifying transactions can draw on it.
    • Inactive overdraft account — An overdraft account that is not available for use. The account may be technically active but transactions cannot use it because of a disqualifying event or condition. For details, see Account holder loss of access to the overdraft line of credit in Managing Overdraft Accounts.
  • Overdraft line of credit — A predetermined line of credit made available to the account holder to cover transactions where there are insufficient funds in the spending account. Also called “overdraft credit limit”.
  • De minimis — The minimum threshold amount that the primary account can draw on the overdraft account, before a fee will be applied.
  • Grace period — A period of time granted to the account holder to repay funds drawn on the overdraft account before the overdraft fee is charged. The grace period starts when an authorization for an overdraft transaction is approved or when it exceeds the de minimis threshold.

Account configuration for overdraft

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Availability

Overdraft support for secondary spending accounts is in development and the functionality is subject to change. Contact Galileo for more information.

Galileo historically supported overdraft only for DDA spending accounts, and only when the DDA account was the cardholder's primary account. Galileo expanded overdraft support from primary accounts to up to 50 secondary spending accounts, provided they share a balance with the primary account.

Secondary spending accounts must belong to the same owner as the primary account — as shown in the One customer, two products scenario — but can have different product IDs as long as they are DDAs configured for overdraft. For more details, see Galileo setup in the Configuring Overdraft Products guide.

Guide contents

The following sections in this guide describe overdraft accounts at Galileo.


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