Reading Your Credit Card Statement

Learning how to read your monthly statement will help you pinpoint the key information featured in your account statement.

Quick Tips for Reading Your Bank Statement

• When you get your credit card statement, be sure everything is correct.
• Check the due date.
• Look at the new charges and match everything with your receipts.
• Make sure your last payment was recorded correctly.
• If something seems out of place call your credit card issuer immediately to get it fixed.

Key Terms to Look For When Reading and Understanding Your Bank Statement:

Post date: Date that a purchase, cash advance, fee, service charge or payment is received on your charge or credit card.

Total credit line: The maximum balance you can carry.

Statement/Closing date: Date that your billing cycle ends. Interest is calculated on that date for the cycle and the statement is generated.

Available credit line: The amount of unused credit that is available to you. Your available credit is your Balance subtracted from your Total Credit Line.

Amount over credit limit: Amount you owe that exceeds your credit line. Any combination of purchases, cash advances, fees or finance charges may cause you to exceed your credit limit. If you go over your credit limit, you will be charged an extra fee each month until the amount of money you owe is less than or equal to your credit line.

Cash advance limit: The maximum amount of cash that you can withdraw from your credit card account.

Past due: Status of an account when the minimum payment has not been received by the due date.

Available cash limit: The amount of cash that is available within your cash advance limit that you can withdraw from your credit card account.

Purchase/Advance minimum due: The smallest amount you can pay on your purchases and cash advances by the Payment Due Date and still meet the terms of your card agreement.

New balance: The total amount you owe the issuer. Includes any unpaid balance from last month, new purchases, cash advances and any other charges such as annual fee, late fees or finance charges.

Minimum amount due: The smallest amount you can pay by the Payment Due Date and still meet the terms of your Card Agreement. This is listed on two places in your statement.

Balance transfer: Transferring balance from one card to another, usually to take advantage of a lower interest rate. Transfers are limited to the available credit on the receiving card and may incur fees additional to the interest.

Previous balance: The total balance due at the end of the last billing cycle.

Finance charge: The cost of consumer credit expressed as a dollar amount. This includes any charges, such as interest and fees, paid by the consumer to the creditor for obtaining a loan.

Periodic rate: The interest rate described in relation to a specific amount of time. For example, the monthly periodic rate is the cost of credit per month; the daily periodic rate is the cost of credit per day.

Annual percentage rate (APR): The interest rate, calculated on a yearly basis, which you pay on balances. If you carry a balance, the APR is the best indicator of what credit costs.

Payment due date: The day a payment is due to the creditor. After that date, a late fee can be charged, the payment can be recorded as late, and the account can be considered delinquent.

Total balance: The total amount you owe the issuer. Includes any unpaid balance from last month, new purchases, cash advances and any other charges such as annual fee, late fees or finance charges.

Information in this article was derived from the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission and the My Money Management Web sites.