Express clearance of cheque in same bank

MrKringle

Can anyone tell me how long it would take to express clear a cheque from one natwest branch to another natwest branch. Basically we received a cheque for insurance payout from natwest in london and my account is natwest in newbury. We need to pay a bill or two urgently.

thank you for any help

crazyguy

I think you pay a fee for expressing a cheque although in most cases from what I remember they do state that its not guaranteed as it still sent via post, so you may only benefit with an extra day here as if you put it in on monday and gets posted for that day it probably wont clear until tuesday anyway, why not phone the people you are due to pay and ask that they bare with you for a few days !

AbbeyDhabi

MrKringle wrote: »

Can anyone tell me how long it would take to express clear a cheque from one natwest branch to another natwest branch. Basically we received a cheque for insurance payout from natwest in london and my account is natwest in newbury. We need to pay a bill or two urgently.

thank you for any help

Yes, there certainly will be a fee. And for that fee you get just about nothing. The cheque is paid into a suspense account and posted to the clearance centre though royal mail rather than internal mail. Someone at the branch calls the clearance centre every day after that to see if it will be paid, then release the funds from the suspense account to your account.

Now, if you're lucky, you may get access to the funds a day or two early. Worse case scenario is it might actually take longer. And no, you have no comeback if that does happen.

The only thing you can do is ask the urgent bills to wait.

MrKringle

Seems pathetic that one branch can't clear a cheque instantly from another branch of the same bank !. Oh well guess it will have to wait for normal clearance.

Thanks for the help peeps.

pinkdalek

MrKringle wrote: »

Seems pathetic that one branch can't clear a cheque instantly from another branch of the same bank !. Oh well guess it will have to wait for normal clearance.

Thanks for the help peeps.

Some cheques do clear instantly but there are other factors to consider. Mainly the amount of the cheque but also if the cheque is not from a branch locally then sometimes they will go through clearance. There is a lot of cheque fraud out there.

Seems pathetic that we still use cheques when you can send money electronically, but that's a different issue entirely.

AndyinLondon_2

AbbeyDhabi wrote: »

Yes, there certainly will be a fee. And for that fee you get just about nothing. The cheque is paid into a suspense account and posted to the clearance centre though royal mail rather than internal mail. Someone at the branch calls the clearance centre every day after that to see if it will be paid, then release the funds from the suspense account to your account.

Now, if you're lucky, you may get access to the funds a day or two early. Worse case scenario is it might actually take longer. And no, you have no comeback if that does happen.

It's been a while since I dealt with cheques and different banks will have different policies, but we always used to use Special Delivery (guaranteed next day). Partly because it was a better service but mainly because of the tracking just in case something went wrong with the post. I doubt we made much (if any) profit on specials considering postage costs and admin time. And even if we did make a profit, my reasonably busy branch only did about 3 a week.

erdd2

As will have to go through "clearing" standard statement is "3 to 6 working days with no guarantee"

jonesMUFCforever

Express clearance is a waste of time as you do not get cleared funds any quicker than if it went through clearing system.
If you wanted the money quickly you should have asked for the funds to be put into your bank account directly.

rb10

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Express clearance is a waste of time as you do not get cleared funds any quicker than if it went through clearing system.

You can get cleared funds quicker.

With Express Clearance you will sometimes have cleared funds as soon as 1400 the working day after the cheque is paid in rather than waiting 3/4 working days.

But it's a real gamble, as they can take ages to come through.

slup_2

When I used to pay Natwest cheques (expenses cheques from my employer) into my Natwest branch, they would clear instantly.

I could go out to the ATM and it would show an updated 'available balance' in the time it took me to walk out of the branch.

These were two completely different branches (London and Leeds).

A mistake I only ever made once was that if you pay a non Natwest cheque in at the same time, the whole lot would then follow the full clearing cycle.

abby1234519

When I paid a natwest cheque from my housemate say on a monday into my natwest account, it would be cleared BY wed