I can't believe I never thought of this one. If real-time enough, that sounds like a very useful feature for accounting purposes. You could turn the email into a phone push notification asking you to classify the transaction as business or personal, for example.
That said, does it take negative numbers? Or how would it handle refunds/returns?
From my experience it seems to be very real-time. They call them "Rapid alerts"
> Or how would it handle refunds/returns?
It doesn't notify you of refunds as far as I know. So you won't be able to track your exact account balance just based on these emails. It's good enough for knowing what's going on IMO.
Having now set it up on a few of my credit cards, I can say that speed (and alert types) vary bank-by-bank. One bank sends me notifications for every transaction, another is like Chase but requires $1+ transactions, not $0. A third is delayed in showing any transactions online (or by email) by two days on a regular basis, making its alerts somewhat less useful.
