John Do That’s the point. Legally, it’s still your money. You just can’t spent it because it’s reserved for a payment you’ve already done. Think of it like a special version of a secured credit card like they are available in the US.
Or think of it as a charge card. But instead of paying the bill at the end of the month, Bunq puts the money aside for you over the month, to „secure“ the settlement at the end of the month. But until then, it’s still your money.
Without this setup, I doubt Bunq could have gotten the credit label for the card. The card generates more income than debit, and EU regulators defined pretty narrowly what makes the difference between credit and debit.
Otherwise, anyone could just print credit on any debit card and make more money with it.
Bunq did design a product that combines the UX of a debit card with a behind the scenes legal settlement of a charge card. That’s super clever. But of course that legal situation comes with obligations to pay interest, based on when the money really leaves your account, not based on when it became unavailable for spending.
This detail also only matters for accounts with interest. If people have the free Travel Card account, there’s no interest paid. So that’s not a problem for Bunq.
(This difference between booking date and value date always existed for all transactions for banks. And the difference between those two dates is that the one is relevant for interest. So one could say that it always has been that way, that people get paid interest on a different balance compared to what is available for spending. Just that the difference between booking date and value date usually is just a day or two, and not the period of a charge card bill.)
