Alliance & Leicester faster payments

Darlosthejackal

So, first post so apols if it's wrong or lacking in etiquette or anything. Just thought I'd share a particularly bit of "banking" with you.

Made a "Faster Payment" todaty of £1,700 from Alliance & Leciester to HSBC.
After 3 hours, money had not hit target account.
Phoned to check, was told it would take 3-4 days to clear, because A) it's a new payee and it's more than £250.
Alliance & Leicester website help clearly states "The Faster Payments scheme limit is £10,000 for immediate transfers and one off transfers that are set for a future date."

What I should have done is drawn out the cash, walked across town and paid in the money to the target account, but I checked with A&L first and could see no problem with instant clearing. Because the payment date is today and the money has left my account, I cannot now cancel the payment and deal in cash!

Net result? I have no car for 5-6 days (as we're on a weekend) until A&L decide they'll part with my cash. In the meantime I guess they are earning interest on it. You can utterly guarantee that if I promised them some money and then took 6 days to pay up then I'd be charged for it.

Once sorted I shall be closing my A&L account. When the revolution comes the banks will be first against the wall.

Grumpy of Oxford.

Baldur

Darlosthejackal wrote: »

Alliance & Leicester website help clearly states "The Faster Payments scheme limit is £10,000 for immediate transfers and one off transfers that are set for a future date."

The A&L website is quite correct about that.

Unfortunately, as you have discovered to your cost, A&L's own limit is paltry. For your future information, the following link gives more information on a 'per institution' basis - http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/faster_payments_service/value_limits/

cottager

Darlosthejackal wrote: »

Alliance & Leicester website help clearly states "The Faster Payments scheme limit is £10,000 for immediate transfers and one off transfers that are set for a future date."

The Faster Payments scheme limit is £10,000, but unfortunately A&L's own limit is not, as Baldur says. They are not alone as you'll have seen from the link given. It's been left up to each institution to move at their own pace with implementing Faster Payments and set their own limits as they roll it out, up to the maximum. Some went straight off with the full £10k (e.g. RBS/Natwest, also Barclays I think) while others have only relatively recently started offering outward FPs at all and have chosen to 'work up' from lower limits (e.g. Nationwide, Santander).

Very frustrating for us! Though in fairness it's a hugely costly exercise for the banks, and not all their systems are the same (some quite antiquated I believe), so implementation of FP and appropriate security involves different strategies for each of them.

Currently more accounts can receive FPs (including many building society ones) than can make them, and it takes 'both ends' to be FP-enabled for a transfer to be instant.

Darlosthejackal

Wow- thanks for the quick posts & info, guys! I shall be wary in future!
Less Grumpy of Oxford...

paulw98

unfortunatly what you experienced is true but is in the t&c's for the account. A&L are pretty good at giving out cash over the counter though and when i last tried to buy a car at short notice they were the only bank that would let me have 5k in cash over the counter with no advance notice. Hardly somthing to close the account over though is it?

naked

This web page might be useful if you want to see if you can make a faster payment:

http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/faster_payments_service/value_limits/

If you want to see if you can receive a faster payment, put the sort code in here:

http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/sort_code_checker/

I found the first link useful for figuring out why my nominal £10 a month SO to my Credit Card goes by Faster Payments but the extra 1 off payment I made only goes by BACS (Current account is with Santander, CC with HSBC).

I also didn't realise a SO can only go on a weekday, even if it goes by faster payments.

I don't understand why they don't seem to be planning to phase out standing orders and BACS over the next decade and use the new faster payments system once it has settled in.

pippitypip_2

When I use my A&L account to make payments, sometimes they get there within an hour, sometimes 3-5 days. It's hit and miss. This is for the same payments made each and every month!! I emailed them and this was their (not so) helpful response:
Thank you for your e-mail regarding the Faster Payments Service.

Like other banks, we are implementing Faster Payments in stages so our transaction limits could be different to those advertised by the Scheme at any given time, as could the type of transaction applicable for Faster Payments.

Whilst we have started sending single immediate payments of up to £250 by this method, payments may sometimes be delayed due to occasional fraud checks. Only one Faster Payment per day can be sent from an account. Additionally, any initial payment to a new payee will not be sent by this method.

Please be aware that any payment not sent by the Faster Payment method will transfer via BACS (Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services) which may take up to four working days to credit the payee’s account.

We do hope you find the above information useful, however, should you have any further questions or need any more help, please visit our ‘Help’ section online or contact us again.

Kind regards

Customer Services
Alliance & Leicester plc


hth,
pippitypip

dougz_2

pippitypip wrote: »

Only one Faster Payment per day can be sent from an account.

They are wrong about that. I have sent one to each of a few different destinations. I don't know if there is an upper limit of how many.

blueberrypie

dougz wrote: »

They are wrong about that. I have sent one to each of a few different destinations. I don't know if there is an upper limit of how many.

I tested this a few months ago and found that only one payment per day would go by FP - at least at that time and on the account I tested.

It's possible that things have now changed and that the CS person didn't realise (it wouldn't be the first time A&L's CS got stuff wrong). It seems less likely, though it's still possible, that there are different policies for different accounts. As I'm in the process of moving away from A&L, I'm not inclined to test it again on mine.

heloid

You can definitely send more than one faster payment per day, however only one per recipient. I do this every month to fund my account!

stuzhunter

A&L faster payment normally takes 3 days minimum. They are useless with regard to faster payment..

I use Royal bank of scotland for faster payment and payment is 'instant' 90% of the time or in the account within the hour.