Telegraphic Transfer Fees (CHAPS) - are the high charges justified?

pknottm

I am moving house soon and have to pay for 3 lots of CHAPS transfers at £35 a transfer!

Transfers are:
£100K from Building Society to Solicitor;
£225K from personal account to Solicitor;
£315K from solicitor on completion date;

I realise that I save by not losing the interest when compared to BACS transfers, but can £35 per transfer really be justified with todays technology?!
Even with a BACS transfer, the technology is their to move the money around instantly. This fee is just greed on the part of the banks, and I have no option but to pay it!!

The last time I had to use a CHAPS transfer (3 years ago, the Coventry BS charged me £23, this time around the charge is £35, which I think is quite a big increase!)

When I sold my house in December 2006 I also had to pay for two transfers, so in the space of 2-3 months I will have forked out £175 just for money transfers!! :mad:

dunstonh

£35 a go is fine. There is a financial liability and a lot of manual clerical work involved at a manager level to do a chaps payment. This is at both ends of the transaction.

pknottm

dunstonh wrote:

£35 a go is fine. There is a financial liability and a lot of manual clerical work involved at a manager level to do a chaps payment. This is at both ends of the transaction.

Why has the cost risen 52% is 3 years, and does the cost really justify the amount charged?! Even if manual work is involved I would imagine is not in excess of a couple of minutes either end!

danm

No.

Takes 10 minutes max.

dunstonh

by asst manager grade staff or equivalent. £150 per hour is £25 for 10 minutes.

pknottm

dunstonh wrote:

by asst manager grade staff or equivalent. £150 per hour is £25 for 10 minutes.

Do asst managers get involved in every transfer? And do they do take 10 minutes to authorize by a manager?!

There must be thousands of these transfers every day. I would have thought that CHAPS details would be keyed in by data-processors, and the manager just authorises them all at once!

You can't really believe these are justified!!!

eslick

work in the corporate world and we only pay 2 euros for each of these types of transfers so you can guess how annoyed it makes me when I have to pay such high fees

dwight-van-man

These fees subsidise the cost of personal banking - what would you prefer; £35 for a TT fee paid every few years or a monthly standing charge or per transaction fee for your current account?

dunstonh

pknottm wrote:

Do asst managers get involved in every transfer? And do they do take 10 minutes to authorize by a manager?!

There must be thousands of these transfers every day. I would have thought that CHAPS details would be keyed in by data-processors, and the manager just authorises them all at once!

You can't really believe these are justified!!!

Ok, its been a good few years since I worked at a bank but they required manager level to deal with them and took 10 minutes each and had to be dealt with as soon as they arrived. Typically 3 a day in medium/large branch arrived.

The revised BACS system coming in a couple of years should resolve a lot of the need for CHAPS if all goes to plan.

watcherman

Absolutely, I would hate to see my bank's profits drop below several billion pounds per annum

Forreal

Oh and don't forget VAT on top of the charge courtesy of your friendly solicitor!!!