DD's due on 1st January

Extant

Milarky wrote: »

Other than a law dating back to 1871 - allowing banks not to conduct business on weekends and 'public holdiays' is there any technical reason preventing all payments (single future-dated, standing orders AND direct debits) moving on a seven day basis?

(Nope, thought not!)

Banks are being treated like solictors and other 'professionals' who can set their own terms and regulate our lives around their needs.

It's only money we are talking about moving on as frequent a basis as possible - not the crown jewels..

Yes, there is.

The vast majority of systems are almost "legacy" systems - i.e. they're old. They've never been changed for various reasons:

• "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
• Most bank systems absolutely require 100% availability and up time. I'm not kidding you when I tell you that a lot of these things have more redundancy systems than your average military jet.
• The systems employed are incredibly complex, and nowhere near as simple as they may seem.

It is not as simple as flicking a switch and saying "okay, payments work on Saturdays now!"

It would require a ridiculous amount of spending to upgrade the systems used across the UK (and you're not just talking about the banks, you're talking about everything associated: payment processors, clearing companies, etc.) and would require a consensus, as well - there's no use in Bank A saying they'll do it if Bank B doesn't. Imagine that across not only the five major banks in the UK, but every other one that operates here.

As said, it's really not as simple as it may seem - and then, to top it off, most of it would be pointless as most businesses just don't work on the weekends. It's all very well going RARGH BANKS and waving your fist that your direct debit can't be processed on a Sunday, but it means absolutely nothing if your credit card's receivable department isn't sat there to make sure it clears through correctly.

It really has very little to do your "needs" and more to do with the way business is run in our society. Address all complaints to early cultures staring up at the sky.