Bank Clearing....

D1zzy

Now I thought all the main banks used the same clearing system with a 3 to 4 day clearing time - but here's a story..

On Friday I paid into a Natwest current account a cheque from HSBC. On the same day I paid in a cheque from Halifax into a LLoyds ( same bank... hehe!) current account.
On Sunday (2 days) the cheque paid into Natwest had been cleared and I was able to do an on-line same day transfer to a high interest account in another bank.

The cheque paid into LLoyds will not clear until Thursday and an on-line transfer to an external account will take a further 4 days + the weekend.

So
Into Natwest & Out of Natwest 2 days
Into Lloyds and out of Lloyds - almost 2 weeks!!

Why the difference? - have asked LLoyds but they say its just the clearing process

Mikeyorks

D1zzy wrote: »

On Sunday (2 days) the cheque paid into Natwest had been cleared

The cheque clearing system only works on Bank working days. As your 2 days embraces both Sat and Sun ...... there's something wrong with your theory. If the cheque value into NatWest had genuinely cleared for value (the '4' in the 2-4-6 rule) ..... on essentially 'Day 1' there's a different explanation other than you are giving.

D1zzy

well whatever...
The Natwest money was visible on-line as a cleared balance on Sunday (apart from £5 it was the only money in the account)

The transfer to the external account went through immediately and I was able to make an immediate check that the money was in the receiving account, and is now earning a fixed 5%

The money paid into LLoyds still shows as an uncleared balance in a current account earning zilch

Extant

How much was the cheque deposited with Natwest? Natwest may have a system in place to allow you to draw on uncleared cheques.

D1zzy

Large amount - maturing fixed rate account. - and it definitely showed up as a cleared balance.
incidentally - if 1 bank allows drawing against an uncleared balance why don't they all. Lets have some consistency!

Could the speed of clearing be related to the fact that both banks (HSBC cheque) and Natwest have fully operational FPS?

gt94sss2

D1zzy wrote: »

Could the speed of clearing be related to the fact that both banks (HSBC cheque) and Natwest have fully operational FPS?

FPS makes no difference at all to cheque payments/clearing.

Regards
Sunil

Extant

D1zzy wrote: »

Large amount - maturing fixed rate account. - and it definitely showed up as a cleared balance.

I very sincerely doubt this. In cheque clearing the drawer isn't even debited until day 2. So why would they let you draw on it before hand?

incidentally - if 1 bank allows drawing against an uncleared balance why don't they all. Lets have some consistency!

It's a business/service decision. Why should they be consistent?

Could the speed of clearing be related to the fact that both banks (HSBC cheque) and Natwest have fully operational FPS?

No.

Mikeyorks

D1zzy wrote: »

The Natwest money was visible on-line as a cleared balance on Sunday

The cheque you paid in on the Friday .... didn't even make it into Clearing until Monday. So you either have an arrangement that up to a certain value (normally £1k) is categorised as cleared funds ... or the cheque you paid in was not HSBC. And as you mention a 'large amount' .... it doesn;t sound to be circa the £1k?

Funny that an adjacent thread is pointing out how long NatWest take ('6 days') to clear cheques!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1513299

The transfer to the external account went through immediately and I was able to make an immediate check that the money was in the receiving account

So was that under or over £10k?