Why did Acorns pause my investments? (Overdraft Intelligence feature)

Acorns has an agreement with some of the major banks, where if a deposit is attempted that may put your primary checking account under a certain amount (usually around $25), our system will flag it as a deposit that may not complete and it is automatically canceled.

For example, if there is $30 in your primary checking account and you try to invest $15, the deposit will be canceled. Keep in mind that this is only at the exact time the system tries to make the investment, and if you have a pending deposit to your checking account it may not register quite yet. This doesn’t actually put a suspension on your account, it just cancels that single investment. If a recent deposit was made into your checking account, it can take Acorns anywhere from 24-48 hours to read the accurate balance and release the pause.

However, keep in mind this is not 100% effective protection against overdrafts due to deposit processing times (which takes 1-3 business days). If there is an investment triggered on Tuesday and it is not identified as a problem, it might not be pulled from the checking account until Thursday. If there are numerous other transactions within your checking account between that Tuesday and Thursday, this may cause an overdraft. Please note, we are unable to disable this feature.

How to troubleshoot issues with the Overdraft Intelligence feature?

First, keep in mind that it can take anywhere from 24-48 hours for your bank to relay updated bank account balance data. If you were notified about your transactions being paused and you now have enough funds available in your linked primary checking account, you can simply just go ahead and initiate a one-time deposit for the canceled deposit/transfer.

If you are encountering issues with your investments being paused due to the Overdraft Intelligence feature and you are confident that you have/had an appropriate amount of funds in your account at the time that your investment deposit/transfer was initiated, then there is likely a connectivity issue with your bank that needs to be refreshed, such as your Round-Ups® account unlinking (Keep in mind that your primary checking account may still be linked, but the Round-Ups® connection may have snapped as they are different connections).

Please try these steps below to refresh the connection with your bank:

• Log in to your online bank account manually using your username and password to ensure that you have the correct login credentials.
• Once you’ve logged in to your bank, go back into your Acorns account and relink your bank account by following the instructions below:

For Mobile:

1. After logging in to your account, tap the menu (avatar) in the upper left corner of the screen
2. Tap 'Settings'
3. Tap 'Linked Accounts'
4. Tap 'Link another account'
5. Search for your bank and connect using your bank credentials

For Web:

1. After logging in to your account, click on the menu (avatar) in the upper right corner of the screen

2. Click on 'Profile & Settings'

3. Click on 'Linked Accounts'

4. Click on 'Link another account'

5. Search for your bank

6. Enter your bank’s online banking credentials and click on 'Submit'

If you would like to understand more about the differences in the Primary Checking account and Round-Ups® account connections, go here.

*If your bank account is linked for Round-Ups®, you can click unlink, then relink using the steps above to refresh the connection.