Transferring money between/into accounts

amibovvered

I'm not much of a financial expert, so apologies in advance if this is a dumb question.

Just over 2 years ago, I loaned my brother £50,000. I transferred it from my Nationwide Flexaccount to his Abbey account. The individual transaction limit was £10,000 but there was no limit on the number of transactions so I did 5 consecutive transactions of £10,000 and the money appeared in his bank account within 24 hours. It was the first time I'd done anything like that and I was amazed at how quick and easy it was.

This July he repaid the loan but obviously things have changed a lot in 2 years - his limit was £5,000 and it was a daily limit so it had to include any other transactions in his account, of which he has quite a few. Also the money took forever to appear in my account. All told, from his first transfer to the last appearance in my account took nearly 4 weeks!

Once the money was all there, I wrote a single cheque for £50,000 to the Prudential to open an investment account.

My question is - sorry to be long-winded - now that they seem to be phasing cheques out, what other method could I use to transfer a large amount of money in a single transaction?

Thanks in advance

opinions4u

CHAPS.

Typically with a fee charged of between £20 and £30.

amibovvered

Thanks for that - I have vaguely heard of CHAPS but don't know much about how it works. There's no simple free way then?

opinions4u

amibovvered wrote: »

Thanks for that - I have vaguely heard of CHAPS but don't know much about how it works. There's no simple free way then?

I beleive Faster Payment limits will be increased in the not too distant future.

Some accounts will allow a BACS transfer out of them for larger amounts, but these would typically take 3 working days. I'd expect BACS to die out at some point in the future as FP becomes a little bit more flexible.

Bunter_2

amibovvered wrote: »

I'm not much of a financial expert, so apologies in advance if this is a dumb question.

Just over 2 years ago, I loaned my brother £50,000. I transferred it from my Nationwide Flexaccount to his Abbey account. The individual transaction limit was £10,000 but there was no limit on the number of transactions so I did 5 consecutive transactions of £10,000 and the money appeared in his bank account within 24 hours. It was the first time I'd done anything like that and I was amazed at how quick and easy it was.

This July he repaid the loan but obviously things have changed a lot in 2 years.

- his limit was £5,000 and it was a daily limit so it had to include any other transactions in his account, of which he has quite a few. Also the money took forever to appear in my account. All told, from his first transfer to the last appearance in my account took nearly 4 weeks!

Can you be certain that things have changed. You had been transferring from a flex account to an Abbey account. He was transferring to your flex account from his Abbey account.

I have transferred funds from an Abbey account to a flex account (but not the other way around). On one occasion the transfer was effected in one day but usually it takes up to five days for the transfer to show up in the flex account.

Once the money was all there, I wrote a single cheque for £50,000 to the Prudential to open an investment account.

My question is - sorry to be long-winded - now that they seem to be phasing cheques out, what other method could I use to transfer a large amount of money in a single transaction?

Thanks in advance

Everything is relative; but seems to me that Nationwide did not do too badly transferring 10 grand daily within 24 hours.

benjus

Nationwide has a pretty low limit for Faster Payments - £1000 maximum per day. Anything above that is sent via BACS. Most of the other banks that support Faster Payments have higher limits - e.g. First Direct is £10,000 per transaction.

Baldur

benjus wrote: »

Nationwide has a pretty low limit for Faster Payments - £1000 maximum per day. Anything above that is sent via BACS. Most of the other banks that support Faster Payments have higher limits - e.g. First Direct is £10,000 per transaction.

Two years ago, when the £10,000 payments were supposed to have been made, one range of Flex account sort codes did not support Faster Payments at all and the other range only supported a minute amount (£10 maybe, from memory?) which was subsequently raised to £250 on all sort codes earlier this year and recently to the towering heights of £1,000.

amibovvered

Bunter wrote: »

Everything is relative; but seems to me that Nationwide did not do too badly transferring 10 grand daily within 24 hours.

Exactly - that's what I meant, I thought it was brilliant! Although it would have been nice to do it one go but I appreciate the need for limits. I was pointing out that today it seems to be slower, not faster.

amibovvered

Baldur wrote: »

Two years ago, when the £10,000 payments were supposed to have been made, one range of Flex account sort codes did not support Faster Payments at all and the other range only supported a minute amount (£10 maybe, from memory?) which was subsequently raised to £250 on all sort codes earlier this year and recently to the towering heights of £1,000.

Well, I'd show you my brother's bank statement if I could get my hands on it! Who knows, maybe it was an aberration, all I know is I was well impressed.

amibovvered

Bunter wrote: »

Can you be certain that things have changed. You had been transferring from a flex account to an Abbey account. He was transferring to your flex account from his Abbey account.

I have transferred funds from an Abbey account to a flex account (but not the other way around). On one occasion the transfer was effected in one day but usually it takes up to five days for the transfer to show up in the flex account.

You're quite right, as you say it was the other way round this time, so I was making the (probably wrong) assumption that transfer limits were broadly similar in different banks. I haven't had occasion to transfer large sums from Flex since that one time so I don't know what the limits are now. I just find it all very complicated!

Baldur

amibovvered wrote: »

Well, I'd show you my brother's bank statement if I could get my hands on it! Who knows, maybe it was an aberration, all I know is I was well impressed.

It must have been an aberration - Nationwide were the joke of the inaugural Faster Payment institutions because of their sluggardly implementation.

See these BBC and Times reports from January 2010, which confirm the £10 limit then in place and only on the 07-02-46 sort code, whereas those with Flex accounts on the 07-01-16 sort code could not make Faster Payments at all.