Bank accounting, analysis and audit

Debit card fees
By and large, debit cards don't cost anything extra: There are no annual membership fees or cash-advance charges.
However, they don't always allow you to escape fees completely: If you withdraw cash from an ATM that's not from—or affiliated with—the bank that issued your debit card, you may be well charged an ATM transaction fee.
What if you use the card to spend more than you have in your account? You can get hit with insufficient funds charges, similar to those incurred by a bounced paper check. If you've registered for overdraft protection, you will incur overdraft fees.
You might also incur a replacement card fee if yours is lost, damaged, or stolen, and a foreign transaction fee, if you buy something in a foreign currency.
All this applies to regular debit cards, which pay with funds drawn on your checking account. A prepaid debit card, which has a set amount of money stored on it, is different—in fact, it's almost a different animal altogether.
A prepaid debit card is akin to a gift card: It allows you to spend a sum that's been loaded onto the card until the balance is used up. Some of them are refillable, so they can be used indefinitely, like regular debit cards. Unlike their regular cousins, though, prepaid debit cards often come with a passel of extra charges: monthly fees, transaction fees, ATM fees, reloading fees, foreign transaction fees—sometimes even a fee for checking your card balance.
Debit cards and Credit cards
Given that many bank debit cards are being issued by credit card companies, the distinction between credit and debit cards can seem as thin as, well, a piece of plastic. Aside from the word "debit" on its front, a debit Mastercard looks identical to a credit Mastercard, for example, and "can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted."
Some debit cards offer reward programs, similar to credit card reward programs, such as 1% cashback on all purchases. A debit card bearing the logo of a credit card issuer offers many of the same consumer protections, such as not holding you liable for fraudulent purchases made by someone swiping your card number.
But credit cards and debit cards work in fundamentally different ways. Using a debit card to make a purchase is like writing a check or plunking down dollar bills: You're paying for the item then and there, drawing on funds in your bank account. When you use a credit card, you're essentially borrowing money from the card company for the item. It pays the merchant, then bills you for the amount. You repay it when you get your monthly statement. If you don't pay the whole amount, you pay interest on the remaining portion, as you would with any loan.
You can get cash with both debit and credit cards. But again, when you get it from a credit card you're borrowing money—as the term for it, "cash advance," implies. If you use your credit card to get cash at an ATM, the money isn't coming out of your bank account, it's coming from your credit card account. And you pay interest if you carry a balance—that is, don't pay it back right away (or sometimes even if you do).
You don't carry a balance on a debit card, because each and every time you use it, you're paying for the item in full, or taking out money that already belongs to you. The big advantage is, debit cards don't put you into debt—you can't spend more than you have. The downside is you are limited to how much you have in your account. That makes credit cards a better option for large purchases you want or need to finance.