fastest method to transfer £ from one bank to another?

showmethemoneyuk

Mikeyorks wrote: »

Have you not actually read all the replies pointing you at Faster Payment?

I have read the replies but the confusion was whether 'all payments now use the faster payment system' included all kinds of internet payments (since there are many), as well as the physical method, or if it even depended on which cards were used at the time etc.. I realize now (I think!) that this "Faster Payment System" simply covers ALL payment types (both physical and online). It can be confusing, especially when I hear from others that payments in the past have had issues depending on what account type or card they have too with their own transactions, lol

Im no expert on bank to bank transfers-my banks own website has a very simple 'payments and transfer' section (RBS), but as it only asks for the name of the person, account number and sort code, and nothing else - eg no space to enter their bank name or further details (aside from a reference from myself), I had always assumed this could only be for payments to other accounts from the same bank. I did not realize that no other details were necessary to transfer to other banks. If payments under a fair amount are free* and also use this faster payment system, then Im happy-thanks

*just to add to my own confusion-I wonder if the limit for transactions with no fees, may differ depending on which bank my account is with? hopefully most banks give note. I assume if they are all using the same 'faster' system, they should not differ too much with possible charges transferring larger sums of money, in theory at least.

agrinnall

If you look on the link that I gave in my previous post you will find a list of FPS limits for each of the main financial institutions - it can't be relied on 100% as they sometimes change them and it can take a while for the list to be updated. If you search hard enough on your own bank's website you should find up to date details of its own limits, although they can be quite hard to locate.

Unfortunately your assumption that the limits shouldn't vary much, while reasonable to the normal person, is in fact wrong - a quick glance at the list shows that Clydesdale/Yorkshire allows up to £5,000 by FPS while Citibank allows up to £100,000 (further complicated by different, often higher, limits for payments made by Standing Order rather than Single Immediate Payments)..

System

I've just had to pay Barclays £25 for a CHAPS transfer of £268,000, and still it took 2 hours. Considering all computers really do is move electrons around at the speed of light I don't see why it can't be virtually instantaneous. Or do they send it to Mars first?

opinions4u

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

I've just had to pay Barclays £25 for a CHAPS transfer of £268,000, and still it took 2 hours. Considering all computers really do is move electrons around at the speed of light I don't see why it can't be virtually instantaneous. Or do they send it to Mars first?

A number of manual checks along the way.

System

opinions4u wrote: »

A number of manual checks along the way.

Yes, the manager phoned up the recipient and said he was sending the money, everything had been checked and was OK.
2 minutes not 2 hours.

innovate

Unfortunately, it's not just CHAPS that can get held up.

Santander yesterday held up 2 faster payments from me (both 4-figure numbers) because..............well, I don't actually know why.

They slapped a completed block on my online access, then called me just after 2pm, about 4 hours after I made the transfers, to check whether I had made the transactions. All was well, they re-instated online access and promised the money would be sent yesterday.

They didn't send it.....and I don't seem to get any sense out of them today. It's lucky that the deadline for these transfers isn't until sometime next week, so I live in hope they will get their act together come Monday

jamesd

Don't get your hopes up on Santander. That's the routine level of service I've received from them whenever security gets involved. The false positive rate for their system seems exceptionally high.

samwsmith1

innovate wrote: »

Unfortunately, it's not just CHAPS that can get held up.

Santander yesterday held up 2 faster payments from me (both 4-figure numbers) because..............well, I don't actually know why.

They slapped a completed block on my online access, then called me just after 2pm, about 4 hours after I made the transfers, to check whether I had made the transactions. All was well, they re-instated online access and promised the money would be sent yesterday.

They didn't send it.....and I don't seem to get any sense out of them today. It's lucky that the deadline for these transfers isn't until sometime next week, so I live in hope they will get their act together come Monday

Similar thing happened to me and I had to get the executive complaints team involved through twitter, it got sorted the same day then.
(Although they didn't restore access when I confirmed that it was me when I originally called, that's why I had to get the exec team involved)

debbyjg

Set the account you want to transfer money to as a bill payment, then pay the bill via telephone banking. If you keep the payment under £100 it will be done by the faster payment service (nearly instant). You can pay the bill as many times as you like. Banks have various charges but none charge for a bill payment under £100 even by faster payment service.

innovate

jamesd wrote: »

Don't get your hopes up on Santander. That's the routine level of service I've received from them whenever security gets involved. The false positive rate for their system seems exceptionally high.

You are right, I should not have had any hopes.

One of my two payments (the one for the bigger amount) actually did go through sometime late on Saturday.

The second one, so I was told when I called them again on Saturday evening (call took over 1 hour!!!), had actually been cancelled since they could only leave a voicemail for me when they first tried to call me.

They'd never told me before that any payment had been cancelled, and they had no explanation whatsoever why one payment was cancelled whilst the other was not. I did ask whether I had exceeded some daily limit but they said no, the daily limit for faster payment is £100K, and the sum of my payments wasn't for anything like that amount. There was just no reasonable explanation - apart from that it was apparently in my interest that they messed up these payments.

It's all very well that the payment cancellation was "to protect our customers' interest" but since neither their systems nor their people tell you in a timely manner what's happening, or not happening, with queries on your payment requests, they are, effectively, not a trustworthy financial partner.