best online banking service

scottatkinson

Hi there,

I am wondering who has the best online banking service out there.

I bank with Halfix but theres is not in real time and seems to be a day behind. this makes it very tricky working what is my actually cash standing.

I use the bank to pay my bills etc.

Does anybody do a real time service so if say a direct debit came out of my account it would be shown straight away ???

noh

Don't really know what you mean.
Direct Debits are processed and come out of the account in the early hours of the morning of the day they are due.
My Halifax online banking always shows them when they occur.
Faster payments are always shown when they arrive in the account and the available balance updated to reflect this.

What exactly are you expecting?

97trophy

try hsbc. have a look at the demo on their website.

rb10

Halifax online banking is as real-time as you can get.

My direct debits always show on the day that they are taken from my account, there's no delay.

Do you mean debit card payments? As at every bank, even if these are shown as being deducted from your available balance straight away (as Halifax does), they will not actually show up on your statement until around 1-3 days after the transaction.

The reason for this is because when you authorise a transaction (i.e. by entering your PIN), all you are doing is giving the retailer permission to take the money from your account at some stage in the near future, and your bank is saying that they are happy for this to go ahead. A few days later, the retailer will then take the money from your account, and it's at this point when the transaction shows up on your statement.

No bank will be able to show the transaction on a statement until this date, so your Halifax online banking is showing it as real-time as is possible.

Paul_Herring

scottatkinson wrote: »

Does anybody do a real time service so if say a direct debit came out of my account it would be shown straight away ???

The best way is to do it yourself, and use your bank statement as confirmation, rather than rely on the bank as the primary source of your balance.

For example your online bank statement won't even mention that DD that comes out next Tuesday, so the balance would indicate that you could quite happily withdraw £100 today, however by using your own accounting, you'll know about it beforehand so will know you can't really withdraw that much, but you could withdraw £40 (or more, but at least you'll know that you'll be using an overdraft.)

At its simplest, this will be a spreadsheet with income and spending for the next payslip or so. Up to stuff like MSMoney/GnuCash/other software where you can plan more than 6 months in advance and handle multiple accounts.

456789

HSBC and Halifax are good

wornoutmumoftwo

I'm with RBS, statements aren't in real time but you get a mini statement like you'd get out the cash machine.

Can only change direct debits/standing orders with 3 days notice though.

Forgot to mention, you can actually ring your local branch on a land line and get a human being on the other end.

McKneff

halifax are no problem to me.
I transfer money from my current account to my ISA and its done instantly,
before my very eyes.

Jonboy1889

HSBC are the best I've used. You can even call them and find out what "pending" transactions are on their way using the phone service. No other bank I've used has offered this service. Unless anyone knows of other banks?

Twister84

Jonboy1889 wrote: »

HSBC are the best I've used. You can even call them and find out what "pending" transactions are on their way using the phone service. No other bank I've used has offered this service. Unless anyone knows of other banks?

Is this automated at all?

RBS/Natwest can tell you what pending transactions you've got if you ring them - the only information that can't be told is the location of where you've used the card, but you can get the time, date and amount of the pending transaction.

babes21

Nationwide, they're always up-to-date. I've been with them around 8 years and have never had any problems.