Understand How to Read and Interpret a Bank Statement

The image above shows a snippet of someone's bank statement. What does it all mean?

First, look at the final column labelled 'Balance'. This tells us how much money there is in the account at that moment. 

Look at the column labelled 'Credit'. This shows all the money that is paid in to the account. Notice how on 8th May, the salary is paid in and the balance increases by £2,056.36.

Now look at the column labelled 'Debit'. This shows all the money that has been paid out of the account. See how the balance goes down by the amount paid out on the 3rd, 5th and 6th May?

We are going to look at some questions involving bank statements now.

You can use your calculator to help you with these questions.