Cater Allen - FPS finally introduced but it will take 2 days!

NFH

Those of us with small business accounts at Cater Allen have long been awaiting Cater Allen's overdue implementation of Faster Payments Service. They will finally implement FPS on 1st January 2012, but there's a big catch. A recent letter sent by Cater Allen, confirmed by a subsequent phone call to them, states that all GBP and EUR outgoing payments to EEA countries, whether FPS (UK) or SEPA (non-UK), will reach the recipient on the next business day.

When paying GBP to another UK account, FPS payments normally reach the recipient within a few seconds, so it is absurd that Cater Allen will debit the payment on one day and then wait until the following working day to send the payment. Cater Allen are blaming this on RBS, and stating that it complies with the Payment Services Directive (true and that's the accepted standard for SEPA payments), but it is nevertheless very disappointing that Cater Allen is not properly passing on the benefits of FPS to its customers.

pmduk

Wouldn't it be easier to change banks if FPS is so important to you?

pinkdalek

pmduk wrote: »

Wouldn't it be easier to change banks if FPS is so important to you?

My thoughts exactly. Would you really want to bank with someone who seems to fob off excuses on RBS or another bank?

Truth is all banks by Jan 2012 have to comply with EU concerning payments to accounts must be reached by the next working day within the EU. Transfers to non UK Banks currently don't go FPS anyway, FPS is just for UK banking system only and if both sort codes are FP compatible then the FP is sent and gets there promptly, otherwise it is sent BACS which at present as you know takes around 3 days.

NFH

pmduk wrote: »

Wouldn't it be easier to change banks if FPS is so important to you?

In that case, can you suggest a better account for a small business with no cash transactions? FPS was the only missing piece and it will still be partially missing.

pinkdalek

NFH wrote: »

In that case, can you suggest a better account for a small business with no cash transactions? FPS was the only missing piece and it will still be partially missing.

http://www.money.co.uk/current-accounts/business-bank-accounts.htm

HSBC? Lloyds? Barclays all offer business accounts, some free for certain periods. All do FP too, don't often hear complaints about their FP facility.

pmduk

NFH wrote: »

In that case, can you suggest a better account for a small business with no cash transactions? FPS was the only missing piece and it will still be partially missing.

I don't have the knowledge to advise on small business matters. There is a small business forum which may be able to help.

NFH

I have an update on this. It turns out that Cater Allen are doing FPS on a same-day debit/credit basis, but the payment will be made always one banking day after the instructed payment date. For example, if on Monday you instruct Cater Allen to make a payment on Thursday, they will debit your account on Friday and the payee will also receive the payment on Friday. This seems ridiculous; they should just do the whole payment on the instructed payment date.

agrinnall

Back in the day when I used to deal with such things Cater Allen were an Agency Bank of RBS, which in general meant most things took a day longer to happen. I suspect that what will be happening with FPS is that it will in fact take two days but they'll delay the posting of the debit from your account to day 2 so it looks like it's all happened on the same day.

ajinperth

In May 2013 when I phoned up to see what had happened to a payment set up on-line the previous day I was advised of the following

• the cut-off time for online payments is 6pm and
• for telephone payment 2pm.

This means that it is not possible to send money to another party unless you can achieve these cut-off times

This does not seem to be in the spirit of the EU regulation for Day plus 1 payment processing

It would appear that Cater Allen are still in the year 2000 mindset four years after the FPS service because widely used in the UK

In fairness to CA I would also record that in all other matters they do a good service including theeir other on-line functions

NFH

ajinperth wrote: »

In May 2013 when I phoned up to see what had happened to a payment set up on-line the previous day I was advised of the following

• the cut-off time for online payments is 6pm and
• for telephone payment 2pm.

This means that it is not possible to send money to another party unless you can achieve these cut-off times

This does not seem to be in the spirit of the EU regulation for Day plus 1 payment processing

There are two parameters:

1. The number of business days between the date the money is debited from your account and the date it reaches the recipient's account. With Cater Allen (and all UK banks), this is always 0, i.e. same day.
2. The lead time required to instruct a payment. If the 1st parameter is 0, then the lead time can be one business day.

According to Regulation 65(3) of the Payment Services Regulations 2009, Cater Allen "may set a time towards the end of a business day after which any payment order received will be deemed to have been received on the following business day". I don't think the 2pm cut-off time complies with this regulation.

DevCoder

2pm cutoff for GBP/EUR is considered acceptable, 4pm for USD. A lot of banks who internally manage their positions (i.e. they sell off/hedge their currency positions to as close to zero each day as possible) would have roughly this timing.