Faster payment arrived late - which bank is at fault?

MiserlyMartin

Hi I requested a withdrawal from a West Brom savings account on sunday the 4th March to leave the account on the 5th to my linked account with Lloyds. West Brom shows the money debited on the 5th - the money did not hit my Lloyds current account until the 6th! It appears on my Lloyds statement as a FPI. I thought FP was supposed to be within hours. West Brom owe me a days interest do they not?

I'm pretty sure if I phone West Brom to query this that they will blame Lloyds. So then I'll phone Lloyds and they will blame West Brom (as I've had this sort of dispute before about a DD between Barclays and a HBOS Credit Card. Barclays said HBOS cancelled the DD but HBOS denied it had happened!)

So who is at fault please and who owes me a days interest? Any comments would be great

stclair

I suspect your payment went via BACS rather than FP.

ehlo

It seems to be that neither bank could be at fault?

Many savings accounts do faster payments in batches. You say that the faster payment left the account on the 5th and arrived just a day later.

It seems likely that West Brom took the money from the account on the 5th and then ran the faster payment batch at midnight so it arrived at lloyds on the 6th.

Therefore it still arrived by the end of the next working day.

stclair, does BACS work on a Sunday? Surely if it went by BACS it would not arrived until at least a day later

stclair

ehlo wrote: »

It seems to be that neither bank could be at fault?

Many savings accounts do faster payments in batches. You say that the faster payment left the account on the 5th and arrived just a day later.

It seems likely that West Brom took the money from the account on the 5th and then ran the faster payment batch at midnight so it arrived at lloyds on the 6th.

Therefore it still arrived by the end of the next working day.

stclair, does BACS work on a Sunday? Surely if it went by BACS it would not arrived until at least a day later

The payment was scheduled on the 04/03/12 to leave the account on the 05/03/12 so if the payment was sent by BACS it would have reached the recipients account by close of business on 06/03/12.

Mikeyorks

MiserlyMartin wrote: »

I thought FP was supposed to be within hours. West Brom owe me a days interest do they not?

They have until the business day after you initiate the transaction. Which is what happened (as you asked for initiation on the 5th). So - nothing owed. The 'extra' day seems particularly likely with Building Societies.

BACS is no longer available for personal transactions. It ceased from 1st Jan.

stclair

Mikeyorks wrote: »

They have until the business day after you initiate the transaction. Which is what happened (as you asked for initiation on the 5th). So - nothing owed. The 'extra' day seems particularly likely with Building Societies.

BACS is no longer available for personal transactions. It ceased from 1st Jan.

Whats it called now then? I still call it BACS if the payment does not get there the same day lol

Mikeyorks

stclair wrote: »

Whats it called now then? I still call it BACS if the payment does not get there the same day lol

It's Faster Payment. But since the Payment Regulations (PSR / PSD) came in on 1st Jan it has until the following business day to arrive. It always did ...... but most still arrive within a couple of hours.

BACS can no longer be used as it's 3 day timescale is outside the PSR timeframe. BACS Direct Credit is still used extensively to pay salaries. That's OK (despite the 3 days it takes) as it's not initiated from personal accounts.

Gromitt

I must agree with Mikeyorks: Neither bank is at fault, your payment was processed on the Monday and arrived by the end of the next working day (Tuesday), inline with current regulation and your T&Cs. Weekends and bank holidays don't count.

If you needed it for Monday, it needed to be initiated on the Friday before close of business.

agrinnall

You will find that a lot of the smaller financial institutions (and a few of the bigger ones) do it this way, it appears that they have implement Faster Payments but without including Single Immediate Payments - effectively everything is processed as if it's a Future Dated Payment or Standing Order so it's done in batch and sent to the receiving account in the early hours of the morning. I guess they have done this to save money while still meeting the requirements of the PSD/R (as described by Mike).

The difficulty often lies in finding out in advance that this is the way it works for a particular institution, it is usually available somewhere but often buried deep in the T&Cs so unless you search hard you may not know. It would be useful if this information was held in the same place as the FPS limits but unfortunately it isn't.

MiserlyMartin

Mikeyorks wrote: »

They have until the business day after you initiate the transaction. Which is what happened (as you asked for initiation on the 5th). So - nothing owed. The 'extra' day seems particularly likely with Building Societies.

BACS is no longer available for personal transactions. It ceased from 1st Jan.

Hi thanks for the replies. Having spoken to WestBrom they told me it takes longer (end of next working day after transfer takes place) because they are not a clearing bank. It goes through by some kind of direct debit - not FPI is what I was told, so this can override the FPI maximum amount limits at some banks.

They did admit that a FP from one clearing bank to another would go through within hours and usually instantly. I asked why some building societies can do fast faster payments and was told that they would be clearing banks themselves. Rather confusing given that a BS is not a bank. But hey, here we go again with slow faster payments and fast ones. Its an improvement over last year and BACS but I don't think the system goes far enough. It ought to be all payments between everyone goes within the same working day!

MiserlyMartin

agrinnall wrote: »

You will find that a lot of the smaller financial institutions (and a few of the bigger ones) do it this way, it appears that they have implement Faster Payments but without including Single Immediate Payments - effectively everything is processed as if it's a Future Dated Payment or Standing Order so it's done in batch and sent to the receiving account in the early hours of the morning. I guess they have done this to save money while still meeting the requirements of the PSD/R (as described by Mike)....

Yes this batching was also mentioned by WestBrom. This is all confusing for the layman. A faster payment should be a faster payment!