Kiting is a fraudulent practice that involves the illegal use of financial instruments to obtain unauthorized credits or to avoid a particular debit impact. It is a form of check fraud that takes advantage of the float to make use of non-existent funds in a checking or other bank account. Kiting is commonly defined as intentionally writing a check for a value greater than the account balance from an account in one bank, then writing a check from another account in another bank, also with non-sufficient funds, with the second check serving to cover the non-existent funds from the first account. The purpose of check kiting is to falsely inflate the balance of a checking account in order to allow written checks to clear that would otherwise bounce. Kiting can occur within the banking system where a series of checks are passed between two or more banks from accounts that have insufficient funds. There are different types of kiting, including circular kiting, retail-based kiting, and corporate kiting. Kiting is illegal and is one of the most enforced types of white-collar crimes. First-time offenders can face very stiff penalties, including fines of $500,000 or more as well as more than 20 years in prison.