You charged your car. The dispenser said the session cost €12.87. You drove off. Half an hour later your bank app pings: €50.00 — Brite EV Charging. Panic. Anger. A draft email titled "what the hell".
Stop. Breathe. That €50 is not a charge. It's a pre-authorisation hold, and it's about to disappear. Here's exactly what's happening.
What a pre-auth actually is
When you tap a contactless card at any EV charger (or any petrol pump, hotel front desk, or rental car desk), the merchant doesn't know in advance how much you're going to spend. So your bank doesn't authorise a charge — it authorises a temporary hold.
At Brite, that hold is €50. Petrol pumps usually hold €100 or €120. Hotels often hold the value of your stay plus extra for incidentals.
The hold is your bank saying: "Yes, this card has at least €50 of available credit, so let them charge their car." Once you're done, we tell the bank the actual amount, the bank releases the hold, and the real amount is what gets billed.
"The €50 is your bank's promise to us. The real charge is what we actually take. The promise melts away."
— What a pre-auth hold actually isWhat you'll see in your bank app
For a typical Brite charge:
- The moment you tap: Your bank app may show a "pending" or "temporary" charge of €50.00.
- While you charge: Nothing changes. The €50 sits there as a hold.
- Within minutes/hours of unplugging: Brite sends the actual cost (say €12.87) to your bank. The real amount appears.
- Anywhere from minutes to a few working days later: The €50 hold drops off. You're left with only the €12.87 deducted from your balance.
If you check between steps 3 and 4, you might briefly see both the €50 and the €12.87. You're not being charged twice. One is the hold (pending), one is the real charge (settled). The pending one will vanish.
How long does the hold take to clear?
The honest answer: it depends on your bank, not on us. We send the release instruction the same day. Your bank actions it on their own schedule.
As a rough rule:
- App-only banks (Revolut, N26 and similar) tend to release pre-auth holds very quickly — sometimes within minutes of the real charge landing.
- Traditional Irish banks (AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, EBS, An Post Money) can take several working days. Weekends and bank holidays can extend this.
If you need a more precise answer for your specific bank, your bank's customer service can tell you their pre-authorisation policy. We cannot — every bank handles this differently.
Common scenarios that confuse people
"I see €50 twice in my bank app"
Happens if you tapped the reader twice (e.g. once to start, then thought it didn't work and tapped again). Both holds were placed. Both will release. Only one real charge will appear.
"I see €50 but my session didn't start"
The hold was placed, but no kWh were delivered. The hold voids automatically. Brite never takes a fee for a failed start. If the €50 doesn't release within several working days, contact your bank — they hold the funds, not us.
"Why does Brite need to hold €50 — I only used €8 of electricity"
Because at the moment you tap, neither of us knows how much you're going to take. €50 covers a comfortably large single session. If we held only €10 and you charged €30 worth, we'd have no guarantee your card could cover it. The €50 is a ceiling that protects both sides.
"Can Brite please cancel the hold manually?"
No, we genuinely can't. The hold is between you and your bank. We told the bank to release it. The bank decides when. If you ring our support line about a pre-auth that hasn't cleared, the most we can do is explain this — please contact your bank's customer service if it's blocking you.
If a hold doesn't clear after several working days
- Ring your bank. Ask them to "release the pending pre-authorisation hold from Brite EV Charging." They can see it on their side.
- If your bank says they need confirmation from us: email us the session details (date, site, your card's last 4 digits) and we'll send confirmation directly.
App-based sessions and the €10 hold
If you charged via the Charge Assist app instead of a tap, you may see a different number. App sessions place a €10 hold rather than €50, and non-start attempts are refunded immediately on our side. The same bank-timing rules apply to the release.
The honest summary
- The €50 is a hold, not a charge.
- The real amount is whatever you actually used.
- The hold disappears, usually within a few working days.
- Brite can't speed it up. Your bank controls the timing.
- You only ever pay for the kWh you actually took.
Pre-authorisations are how every petrol pump, every hotel, every rental car company, and every EV charger in the developed world handles "we don't know how much yet" transactions. EV charging didn't invent this. It just brought it to a corner of your life where you weren't expecting it.