Guide — International banks
US, UK, Canadian, Australian, Singaporean, and UAE banks all handle this differently — and some app-first banks do not offer email alerts at all. Here is where the setting lives at each, and which ones you should stop looking for.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026. Every setting below lives inside your own bank — Numero never asks for banking credentials.
By Rohtash Singh and Taniya Das, co-founders of Numero
Outside India the quality of bank alerting varies enormously. US banks are the best in the world at this — Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Capital One, and Amex all offer granular, free, self-serve alerts with email as a first-class delivery channel. Canadian banks are close behind. Singapore and the UAE are strong, and in DBS's case email alerts are mandatory for some transaction types rather than optional.
The UK and Australia are weaker. Several major banks there document their alerting as text and app push, with email as an afterthought or absent entirely. And the app-first banks — Monzo, Starling, Revolut — have no per-transaction email at all. That is a deliberate product decision, not a setting you have failed to find.
This guide is organised by region and is explicit about which category each provider falls into, so you do not spend twenty minutes hunting for a menu that was never built. Where email alerts do not exist, it says what to use instead.
Do this first
The menu names change by bank and by country. These four decisions do not — and they are what separates an inbox that happens to receive bank mail from one that is a usable financial record.
01
Alerts are only useful if they all land in the same place. Pick the Gmail or Outlook address you actually read, make sure the bank has it as your registered email, and use that same address everywhere — cards, accounts, wallets, and merchant receipts.
02
Most banks enable security and fraud alerts by default and leave ordinary spending alerts off. Switch on alerts for card purchases, transfers out, transfers in, and payments — those are the ones that describe your actual spending.
03
Many banks only alert above a threshold — commonly ₹5,000 in India or a default like S$100 or S$500 at DBS. Anything under the threshold silently disappears. Set the minimum to the lowest value the bank allows so small, frequent spending is captured too.
04
Alert settings are almost always per-account, not per-customer. A savings account, a second savings account, each credit card, and each loan usually need their own pass. Do the whole list once and you never think about it again.
How to read this
You can switch per-transaction email alerts on yourself, from online banking or the app.
Email alerts exist, but registration usually runs through phone banking, customer care, or a branch form rather than a self-serve toggle.
Real-time alerts are push or SMS only. There is no per-transaction email to turn on — rely on statements and merchant receipts instead.
The reliable email is the statement or advice, not a per-transaction alert. Turn on e-statements and let merchant receipts cover the detail.
Full walkthroughs
Where we have bank-specific detail worth the space — a named threshold, a published sender address, a documented delay — there is a step-by-step walkthrough with an annotated illustration of the screen you are looking for.
Bank by bank
Banks rename and rearrange these menus constantly, so this guide gives you the feature name the bank uses and the section it sits under rather than a click-by-click path that breaks on the next redesign. If the screen has moved, search your bank’s help centre for the feature name in bold.
28 banks
US banks have the most mature alert systems anywhere — granular, self-serve, free, and consistently offering email as a delivery channel alongside text and push. If you bank in the US, this is a ten-minute job with a very good payoff.
Look for Account Alerts
Online banking
Chase Online — under profile and settings, open alerts, then choose alerts. Pick the account, the alerts you want, and tick email as a delivery method.
Mobile app
Chase Mobile — the same alerts screen under profile and settings.
Look for Alert settings
Online banking
Online Banking — from the account overview, open profile and settings, then alert settings, and choose email as your delivery preference.
Mobile app
Mobile Banking app — the same alerts area under settings.
Look for Manage Alerts
Online banking
Wells Fargo Online — go to Manage Alerts, choose the account, and tick the alerts you want.
Mobile app
Wells Fargo Mobile — the same Manage Alerts screen.
Look for Account Alerts
Online banking
Citi Online — under profile or account settings, in alerts.
Mobile app
Citi Mobile — under settings, in alerts.
Look for Alerts and notifications
Online banking
Sign in, open the menu, choose alerts, pick the account, then choose text, email, or push per alert.
Mobile app
Capital One Mobile — the same alerts area, where instant purchase notifications can be set to email.
Look for Card Alerts
Online banking
Online Account — Account Management, then the alerts submenu, then Card Alerts. Amex UK documents this as 'Alerts & Preferences'; Amex Australia documents it as 'Alerts, Communications & Privacy'. US savings accounts use Account Services, then Alerts and Communications, then Manage Alerts.
Mobile app
Amex App — Account, then your card under Manage Card, then Notifications under Preferences. Push only; this does not touch email.
UK high street banks are a mixed picture. The big four have alert systems but are text- and push-led, and several are explicit that text is the standard channel. The app-only banks are where email alerts genuinely do not exist.
Look for Alerts / Notification preferences
Online banking
Online Banking — open My Profile below your name, then Notification preferences.
Mobile app
Barclays app — under More, then Settings, where you can enable push notifications.
Look for Alerts
Online banking
Online Banking — the Alerts section is the easiest place to set up and manage them.
Mobile app
NatWest app — under settings.
Look for Account alerts
Online banking
Online Banking — click Account services, then Account alerts on the left, and follow the steps.
Mobile app
Santander app — under settings.
Look for Text alerts / app notifications
Online banking
Internet Banking — under profile and settings.
Mobile app
Lloyds app — notification settings, where balance and overdraft alerts are toggled.
Look for Notifications / alerts
Online banking
Online Banking — under profile or settings, where you can also change the contact details alerts are sent to.
Mobile app
HSBC UK Mobile Banking — push notifications are on by default after install, and are turned off from your device's own notification settings rather than in the app.
Look for In-app notifications
Online banking
Not applicable — these are app-first.
Mobile app
Profile picture, then Settings, then Notifications — at Monzo this covers toggles such as Transactions and payments.
Look for Notifications
Online banking
Settings on the web — open Notifications and choose which categories you receive.
Mobile app
Wise app — under settings, in notifications.
Canadian banks are strong here — alerts are free, granular, and explicitly offer email. Australian banks lean app-first for real-time notifications, with NAB the clearest exception.
Look for Alerts / Alert Centre
Online banking
RBC Online Banking — from Accounts Summary, the Message/Alerts link at the top, then Alert Centre, then Alert Settings in the left-hand menu.
Mobile app
RBC Mobile — More at the bottom right, then Alerts & Notifications under Services, then the three dots at the top right for Settings.
Look for Scotia InfoAlerts
Online banking
Scotia OnLine — profile menu, then Edit profile and settings, then Communication settings, then Manage notifications.
Mobile app
Scotiabank Mobile Banking — the same path; Scotiabank documents it identically across mobile and both web experiences.
Look for TD Alerts
Online banking
EasyWeb — under alerts. Statement and document delivery is a separate setting, under Settings & Services, then Statements & Documents, then Manage.
Mobile app
TD app — under alerts.
Look for Alerts
Online banking
BMO Online Banking or CIBC Online Banking — under alerts or notification settings.
Mobile app
Each bank's app, under alerts.
Look for Transaction notifications
Online banking
NetBank — under settings.
Mobile app
CommBank app — transaction notifications are turned on here, and you need a current version of the app to receive them.
Look for NAB Alerts
Online banking
NAB Internet Banking — under NAB Alerts.
Mobile app
NAB app — under settings.
Look for Notifications / alerts
Online banking
Internet Banking — under settings or notifications.
Mobile app
Each bank's app, under notifications.
Singapore is the strongest region in this guide for email. DBS makes email mandatory for some transaction types rather than optional, OCBC defaults push users to push plus email, and UOB has been actively migrating alerts off SMS onto push and email. The UAE is solid too.
Look for Notifications and alerts
Online banking
digibank online — the equivalent notification preferences sit under your profile's security and preference settings.
Mobile app
digibank mobile — More, then Manage Notifications under App & Security Settings, then choose Accounts or Cards, then Next and Submit.
Look for Transaction alerts
Online banking
Online Banking — under settings or alerts.
Mobile app
Emirates NBD app — under settings.
Look for e-Alerts / transaction alerts
Online banking
Internet banking — under alerts.
Mobile app
OCBC app — open Profile & app settings, then Manage Notifications, then e-Alerts, then Card transactions. Deposit account alerts are managed separately, where you also set the threshold amount.
Look for Notification settings / Manage Notifications
Online banking
UOB Personal Internet Banking — Account Services, then Manage Notifications, where you subscribe and choose the alert mode and trigger amount.
Mobile app
UOB TMRW — Services, then Notification settings.
Look for Alerts & Notifications
Online banking
Online Banking — hover over your name, choose Alerts & Notifications from the dropdown, then click Manage.
Mobile app
Not available — Standard Chartered states this feature can only be enabled, disabled, or customised through Online Banking.
These sit alongside your bank rather than replacing it, and they produce some of the most useful email you will get — because unlike a bank alert, a payment receipt usually names what you actually bought.
Look for Notifications
Online banking
Settings — under notifications, where you can choose which activity emails you receive.
Mobile app
PayPal app — under settings, in notifications.
Look for Device notifications
Online banking
Not applicable.
Mobile app
Device notification settings.
Look for Order confirmations and receipts
Online banking
The account settings on each merchant site.
Mobile app
Each merchant's app.
Make sure they arrive
The most common outcome of enabling bank alerts is that they get filed into spam, Promotions, or an address nobody reads, and the whole exercise quietly fails.
01
Add the bank's alert sender to your contacts. Banks send alerts from a dedicated address — Wells Fargo publishes alerts@notify.wellsfargo.com and UOB publishes unialerts@uobgroup.com, and both recommend adding the sender to your address book. It is the single most effective way to keep alerts out of spam.
02
Check spam and junk once, then correct it. If an alert is already sitting in spam, mark it as not spam rather than just moving it. That teaches the filter; dragging the message does not.
03
In Gmail, check the Promotions and Updates tabs. Bank alerts frequently land in Updates. A filter that applies 'never send to spam' and 'mark as important' to the bank's sender domain fixes this permanently.
04
Do not set a rule that auto-archives or auto-deletes bank mail. Plenty of people mute alert threads to reduce noise and then have no record at all. Keep the mail and let it be organized instead.
05
Verify it worked with a small real transaction. Buy something inexpensive, then confirm the alert arrived in the inbox you chose. An alert setting that was saved but never delivered is the most common failure here.
06
Never act on a link inside an alert email. Genuine alerts tell you what happened; they do not ask you to log in, confirm details, or enter an OTP. If an email asks for any of that, open your bank's app directly instead.
If your bank won’t email
Plenty of banks — every app-first bank, and several large high street names — simply do not send per-transaction email. That is a product decision on their side, not a setting you have failed to find, and no amount of digging will produce one.
It matters less than it sounds. A bank alert tells you an amount left your account at a merchant whose name is frequently a payment processor rather than the shop. A merchant receipt tells you what you bought, the tax, the order number, the refund status, and the return deadline — and it arrives by email whether or not your bank sends anything at all.
Then what
Once alerts and receipts land reliably in one inbox, Numero reads what you authorize and organizes it — merchants normalized, subscriptions detected, refunds tracked to completion, duplicates flagged. No bank connection, no credentials, no screen scraping.
Numero never asks for net banking passwords, card numbers, CVVs, or OTPs, and there is nowhere in the product to enter them. Everything here is a setting you change inside your own bank.
Numero connects to Gmail or Outlook with read-only authorization, and you can disconnect any inbox at any time from Settings.
Numero stores the structured facts it extracts — merchant, amount, date, category — and never the original email body or attachments.
Questions
US banks, comfortably. Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Capital One, and American Express all let you enable per-transaction email alerts yourself, for free, with thresholds you control. Capital One's instant purchase notification can be delivered by email on every approved card transaction, which is about as complete as it gets. Canadian banks — RBC and Scotiabank in particular — are close behind, and DBS in Singapore makes email mandatory for some transaction categories.
Because they do not exist. App-first banks are built around instant push notifications and do not offer per-transaction email alerts. Revolut's own help documentation points you at your phone's notification settings for the app rather than an email preference. You are not missing a menu. For those accounts, statements by email plus merchant receipts are the only inbox record available — which is still enough for most expense tracking, because merchant receipts carry far more detail than a bank alert anyway.
Some banks introduce a deliberate delay. Wells Fargo states that alerts begin one to two business days after you set them up. Chase batches many alert types at the end of each business day, though some send immediately after a transaction. If nothing has arrived after two business days, then start troubleshooting.
Add the alert sender to your address book — this is the fix, and banks recommend it themselves. Wells Fargo publishes alerts@notify.wellsfargo.com and UOB publishes unialerts@uobgroup.com for exactly this reason. In Gmail, also check the Promotions and Updates tabs, and create a filter on the bank's sender domain that applies 'never send to spam'. Mark anything already in spam as not spam rather than just moving it.
Email alerts are free at every bank in this guide. Bank of America states plainly that it does not charge for alerts. The only costs that appear anywhere are carrier charges for text messages, which is a further argument for using email as your primary channel.
No — the opposite. An alert is outbound-only and creates no new way into your account; banks consistently position transaction alerts as a fraud-detection tool, and several send fraud alerts automatically without enrolment precisely because they work. The genuine risk is phishing that imitates alerts. A real alert tells you what happened and never asks you to log in, confirm card details, or enter a code. If an email asks for any of that, do not use its links.
No. Numero never asks for bank credentials, card numbers, OTPs, or net banking access, and there is nowhere in the product to enter them. Numero connects to Gmail or Outlook with read-only authorization and reads only the messages you have authorized it to look at. It stores structured facts — merchant, amount, date, category — and never keeps the original email body or attachments. You can disconnect an inbox at any time.
Other guide
The same guide for HDFC InstaAlerts, ICICI, SBI, Axis, Kotak, PNB, Bank of Baroda, credit cards, and UPI apps.
