Any bank that doesn't charge for unpaid standing orders?

callum85_2

I need to open a bank account for a very specific purpose. I want this bank account to pay another account by standing order once a month.

But there's a risk that sometimes it won't have enough funds to pay the standing order. When this happens,

• I DON'T want the bank to pay the standing order on my behalf.
• I DON'T want to be fined anything.

i.e. I just want them to pay a certain amount to a certain account once a month, if there's enough in my account. (Of course I could do this manually every month, but I'd rather it was automatic.)

I've found that Nationwide meets the first criterium, but not the second. That is, when a standing order was due to be paid, they looked at my balance, noticed it was too low, and didn't pay it. But then they fined me. (That's right: I didn't go into the red. They didn't pay anything on my behalf. They just fined me.)

Anyway, does anyone know of a bank that would meet both the above criteria?

(I just asked First Direct, and they said that they don't meet the first one -- apparently they would sometimes pay out a standing order even if I didn't have sufficient funds, in which case I would then be fined for going into the red, unless I paid it back by the end of the day.)

notts_phil

You Will be lucky

Chadsman

Why not set up an online payment facility which you can use to make said payment at a time of your choosing thereby removing the risk of said payment bouncing?

Sceptic001

callum85 wrote: »

I've found that Nationwide meets the first criterium, but not the second. That is, when a standing order was due to be paid, they looked at my balance, noticed it was too low, and didn't pay it. But then they fined me. (That's right: I didn't go into the red. They didn't pay anything on my behalf. They just fined me.)

It's very easy to skip a payment on a Nationwide standing order. Just click on "Skip next payment". It is up to you to manage your money, not the bank.

cifpower

Only one I know of is northern bank's personal access but you have to live in ni to apply I think.

YorkshireBoy

YBS Cash Transactor?

HSBC Basic Bank Account (but they have a '3 strikes and you're out' policy).

...then again, you could just take some responsibility for your own financial affairs!

callum85_2

This is not a case of "if I screw up, then please don't fine me", but rather, I fully intend to have a variable amount of money in my account every month, sometimes more than £1000, sometimes less. On those months when I do have more than £1000 in the account, I want to pay £1000 out to another account. Otherwise skip this month. Get it?

Sceptic001, of course I know I can skip a payment. I can do that with any bank. The point is, I'm asking if I can automate this process for convenience.

Don't tell me I should "take responsibility" for my finances. That's exactly what I'm doing by enquiring about this here. If there is no bank that treats standing orders in the way I outlined above, then I will just have to do it manually (log on every month, check it's over £1k, and do a transfer if so). It's not irresponsible to want to automate things.

tagq2

Have you checked whether there is some web browser macro software powerful enough to handle a conditional based on a balance scraped from a web page? If not, spend a weekend or five learning a scripting language (Perl, VBscript or anything in between...) and roll your own. It's fun!

Although TBH for something which only takes a few seconds I would prefer to do it manually. I wouldn't want some error in my code or subtle change in the bank's pages to mean I'd just requested something entirely different. When will banks (and services in general) move away from having to present everything in a web page rather than some dedicated protocol?

Gromitt

I remember a building society that did both, BUT there was a catch, something like "We don't charge for returned (unpaid) Direct Debits or Standing orders, but we may cancel some or all of your Direct Debits or standing orders if you don't ensure that there is enough money in your account when they are due to be paid.", plus I don't remember their name anyway!

For a transactions once a month I would just do it manually. Make it a todo on the first of every month or something.

tagq2 wrote: »

When will banks (and services in general) move away from having to present everything in a web page rather than some dedicated protocol?

For non-business users? I'd expect never. Too much support required, things going wrong, people complaining their script didn't work properly and transferred their entire savings account to the wrong person, etc.

For businesses, it already exists, to some degree. For example, some customers can access their accounts via SOAP (still a web request, but at least its much easier to parse as its all XML)

CraftyFox_2

I agree with you completely. If a Standing Order (SO) transfer cannot be initiated, due to insufficient funds, then I don't see why you need to be charged a fee. No action has taken place and the system itself traps this. I think it's reasonable, however, in the case of unpaid Direct Debits (DD) because the other bank has performed tasks which cannot be honoured due to shortfall on your part, but that's not the case with an SO.

I dispute the logic that says "you could just take some responsibility for your own financial affairs!" and "It is up to you to manage your money, not the bank" as the whole point of SOs is that it is the bank which automates the transfer and that aspect takes the responsibility for money management, in that instance, out of your hands. Their only retort would be for you not to use SOs at all but that doesn't explain why you need to be charged a fee if you do.

There are indeed banks that don't charge a fee for unpaid Standing Orders and I know one for sure; LloydsTSB.