MSE News: EU overhaul leads to faster electronic payments

turbo.jet

You're absolutely right. It makes perfect sense that a bank displays the incorrect balance on my account, and it's completely ludicrous of me to suggest it would be a good idea for the reporting mechanism provided by the company which looks after our money to accurately reflect the amount of said money. I stand corrected.

I also stupidly suggested that banks should be fortune tellers with crystal balls (apparently - although for the life of me I can't find a reference to this in my posts). What an idiot I am.

Again, all I'm proposing is a system already adopted in other countries where customer service is expected and given (even from profit making businesses not just charities).

hermante

Internet banking should show authorisations on debit and credit cards instantly, even if the money is not taken there and then.

For example HSBC credit card shows my available balance, but the transactions take a few days to come up. Sometimes it doesn't add up because some company has decided to pre-authorise my card without actually taking the money, and the transaction never goes through. It would be nice to know what these are and to be able to cancel them. This can cause a problem when for a large-ish purchase the merchant somehow decides to authorise my card twice, but only one of the transactions actually goes through. This reduces my credit limit which can mean I am unable to buy something else until it clears.

blueberrypie

turbo.jet wrote: »

You're absolutely right. It makes perfect sense that a bank displays the incorrect balance on my account, and it's completely ludicrous of me to suggest it would be a good idea for the reporting mechanism provided by the company which looks after our money to accurately reflect the amount of said money. I stand corrected.

You're missing the point of what I (and others) are saying. We are not saying that banks shouldn't provide accurate info, as up-to-date as possible. We are saying that it is a bad idea to rely on that info, because it cannot take into account payments which are yet to be made - and those who do so (and then end up overdrawn) would still end up overdrawn even with an up-to-the-minute balance - if they can't keep track of what they've already spent, it seems unlikely they'll be able to keep track of what they've yet to pay for.

I also stupidly suggested that banks should be fortune tellers with crystal balls (apparently - although for the life of me I can't find a reference to this in my posts). What an idiot I am.

I know that my electricity bill will need to be paid next week. I also know that I'll need to have money for fuel for my car this weekend. My bank doesn't know those things - how could it? And if I go out tonight and buy a new coat or something, I'm the only one who knows that as a result, there won't be enough funds to cover the electricity bill. In other words, I've a much better idea of where my finances are going than my bank does. What is in my bank account *today* is only part of the picture - what's going to happen before the next time I get paid is just as important when it comes to avoiding going overdrawn and avoiding charges.

reginald_2

I opened a new AA savings account before Xmas Came live today so I tried to transfer some money from RBS to my AA account via direct debit. The on-line transaction told me it takes three days and the 10/01/12 was the earliest this transfer could take place. So not much changed. Any ideas why the AA should be exempt from the new law?

turbo.jet

blueberrypie wrote: »

You're missing the point of what I (and others) are saying.

Actually, it is you that is missing my point. All I'm saying YET AGAIN is that other countries have systems in place whereby you make a transaction, it reflects instantly. Pure and simple. It reduces confusion.

blueberrypie wrote: »

We are not saying that banks shouldn't provide accurate info, as up-to-date as possible. We are saying that it is a bad idea to rely on that info, because it cannot take into account payments which are yet to be made

Its a bad idea to rely on that info because the banks here don't display the correct info!!! You are arguing my case. I'm saying we SHOULD be able to reply on that info as has been proven its possible to do in other places where banks show transactions straight away.

blueberrypie wrote: »

- and those who do so (and then end up overdrawn) would still end up overdrawn even with an up-to-the-minute balance - if they can't keep track of what they've already spent, it seems unlikely they'll be able to keep track of what they've yet to pay for.

Not necessarily, DD's and standing orders are regular, and this means potentially easier to set aside money for in a separate account, whereas you may forget that you had to duck into a shop on your way home from work to buy an ingredient for a recipe, or some such other random one-off purchase.

blueberrypie wrote: »

I know that my electricity bill will need to be paid next week. I also know that I'll need to have money for fuel for my car this weekend. My bank doesn't know those things - how could it? And if I go out tonight and buy a new coat or something, I'm the only one who knows that as a result, there won't be enough funds to cover the electricity bill. In other words, I've a much better idea of where my finances are going than my bank does. What is in my bank account *today* is only part of the picture - what's going to happen before the next time I get paid is just as important when it comes to avoiding going overdrawn and avoiding charges.

Yes but I'm not talking about payments I'm about to make. I've no idea why that's even been brought up. All I'm saying, yet again, is that it would be nice, and much less confusing, if when you make a transaction, it reflected instantly.

Zorz_2

JacksterD wrote: »

That may have been the case once, but considering no banks will give anything above ~0.12% in interest, and if they do then it's just a limited term offer, there's really no advantage to the customer of delaying the posting of a transaction to your statement.

turbo.jet wrote: »

For starters, I'm not talking about low interest... I'm talking about no interest. HSBC do not pay interest on the positive balances on their current accounts.

Well, there are banks that offer a nice interest rate to their current accounts too, and not only for limited time periods. There is of course some hoop-jumping involved too (like minimum monthly deposits), but at least they allow you to treat your account also as a savings account, and not have to juggle every month, keeping as little money as possible there.

In those occasions (and they are not mere exceptions!) it is in the customer's advantage to delay a payment from the account.

You're right, it is our responsibility to keep track, its just a shame we can't use the 'balance' shown in our internet banking to do so... that's my point - that it would be nice if we could. Instead I have to laboriously and constantly maintain a seperate spreadsheet.

I don't see why you need all this.

While I don't claim intimate knowledge with every online banking system out there, all the banks that I deal with, clearly display the 2 distinct balances (total, and available) and you can see immediately the amount of pending payments.

I do agree that immediate clearing of all payments would make things simpler, but as it is today, at least we get a few days extra interest on our money.

thriftyswift

turbo.jet wrote: »

Excellent... next bit of progress that would be nice to see would be debit card transactions in shops and online appearing instantly on your internet banking/statement (not just removed from your available balance) as happens in other countries (Australia for example). .

You're definitely not alone in this. I work for a major bank and I take calls all the time from people asking why their available balance is £0, or lower than they thought. 99% of the time it's a debit card payment they forgot about, and of course when they ask where it's to, we can't tell them because we don't see merchant details until the payment clears the account. Speeding up clearing would be a big help for a lot of people.

citldave

As a small business i have to have foreign exchange accounts and have to use HSBCNET for account control/payments etc. Faster payments are available but not as standard for the UK. If i make a payment from any of the currency accounts to europe usa far east etc they generally arrive with the recipient within the hour at no real cost. However to pay in the UK it defaults to 3 day payment. I can force it to same day but I get charge about £5 per payment. I have just checked by paying myself nothings changed.
I have spoken to HSBC and they say to have faster payments for the UK I must open another account with them ( for which they will charge a monthly fee) then from that account i can have free fasterpayments. Not via HSBCNET but by HSBConline banking. This must be an abuse of the law. As it is i dont really care as i have already started the transfer of my accounts to another bank which will at least also give me interest on my balances.. which again HSBC fail to do.

gt94sss2

reginald wrote: »

I opened a new AA savings account before Xmas Came live today so I tried to transfer some money from RBS to my AA account via direct debit. The on-line transaction told me it takes three days and the 10/01/12 was the earliest this transfer could take place. So not much changed. Any ideas why the AA should be exempt from the new law?

Because you've asked to make the transfer via direct debit which take time to arrange. If you want it to go instantly via Faster Payments you need to transfer the money from RBS to the AA yourself using these details (from here):

Account name The AA
Sort code 20-97-78
Account number 70372609
Reference Your AA Internet Extra account number

Regards
Sunil

egrid1

Can somebody confirm whether the practice of sending the first payment to a specific account, through the old method, will continue.

There have been some banks that have offered "Faster Payment", but when it is used for a one off payment, to a recipient that you have not sent to before, they have sent it through the normal route (3 days+).
Nationwide was one bank that followed this practice.

Will the first payment also have to go through "Faster Payments", or be the next working day, or still the old route?:question: