I feel dumb - Transaction Time

peteb_2

I always understood why banks etc, required 3 working days to clear a paper transaction as in cheques, but in these days of fast computer transfers why is it still required. I paid my credit card last month the day before it was due and I have incurred a late payment fee. Barclaycard say there is a 3 day transaction time, therefore my payment was late. This was despite checking with my bank who confirmed it was received by Barclaycard on the day I sent it via online banking. The Barclaycard helpline told me although the payment reach "Barclaycard" on that day it takes time to reach the relevant department.

So can someone explain why 3 days for an electronic transfer. Does someone print off the transfer, and transfer it by hand and snail to the correct department?

doitmyself

Yeah it's a nonsense isn't it, I beliveve from later this year (November?) we will actually have instant electronic transfer in which case your payment described here would have been received and credited that same day.
Until then do yourself a favour and ensure those payments are made in good time to reach your account by the due date so as not to incur any charges

dawnydee73

I have a direct debit set up to pay the minimum amount as twice when I paid online it didn't go through and I got charged :mad: But sometimes when I have paid the full balance the minimum amount still gets taken off

greyteam1959

How do you think the big banks make their billions of £££££ profits.
I am afraid it is from people like you ( no offence meant )
Pay the full amount by direct debit every month and put them out of business!!!!

wayne

just to expand a bit on the question.in these days of automatic transfers and direct debits how come nothing gets transfered from your account on the weekend?

raa_thistle

But sometimes when I have paid the full balance the minimum amount still gets taken off

This because within five working days of the DD being taken it cannot be altered, its one of the quirks of the system

Astaroth

Banks only make a small proportion of their money from personal customers and SMEs.

If you see the massive long list of security checks that must be done, many by hand, you would start to understand why it takes so long... whilst a fair proportion go through without any problems or needing human intervention the current thinking it is easier to tell someone it will take X days rather than having to say it will takes X if the transaction is under £500, Y if it is over £500 and under £1000 and within the group, Z if it is over £1000 etc. Secondly it is considered better to have 99% of payments correctly showing in someones account after 3 days rather than 80% being correct after day 1 and then having to recover the 19% from people from payments that hit problems especially as 90% of them would probably get the money back later.

Add to that that banks use fairly old systems - it is exceptionally high risk to alter the core elements of the banking system and you have to co-ordinate thousands of different groups of people/ companies to ensure it all happens correctly.

At the end of the day banks are companies owned by shareholders and therefore people only have jobs to make profit. It is lower risk and easier to change internal processes to get monies transfered within seconds between accounts held by the same bank and you then have a selling point.... bank with us and you wont have to wait to transfer your money between different accounts you hold with us. Make this industry wide and the share holders will be asking what benefit they are getting from the £1bn investment the company has made that not only has not given them any strategic advantage but also removes the cross selling point of have more accounts with us to benefit from quicker transfer times.

steveandel

Astaroth wrote: »

Banks only make a small proportion of their money from personal customers and SMEs.

If you see the massive long list of security checks that must be done, many by hand, you would start to understand why it takes so long... whilst a fair proportion go through without any problems or needing human intervention the current thinking it is easier to tell someone it will take X days rather than having to say it will takes X if the transaction is under £500, Y if it is over £500 and under £1000 and within the group, Z if it is over £1000 etc. Secondly it is considered better to have 99% of payments correctly showing in someones account after 3 days rather than 80% being correct after day 1 and then having to recover the 19% from people from payments that hit problems especially as 90% of them would probably get the money back later.

Add to that that banks use fairly old systems - it is exceptionally high risk to alter the core elements of the banking system and you have to co-ordinate thousands of different groups of people/ companies to ensure it all happens correctly.

At the end of the day banks are companies owned by shareholders and therefore people only have jobs to make profit. It is lower risk and easier to change internal processes to get monies transfered within seconds between accounts held by the same bank and you then have a selling point.... bank with us and you wont have to wait to transfer your money between different accounts you hold with us. Make this industry wide and the share holders will be asking what benefit they are getting from the £1bn investment the company has made that not only has not given them any strategic advantage but also removes the cross selling point of have more accounts with us to benefit from quicker transfer times.

Sorry, call me a cynic but I find it hard to believe most of that. I think banks still stick by the 3 day clearance just because it's what they always have done and that was how it had to be when everything was paper based.

Also they can sit on the cash for 3 days which if you think of the number of banking transactions taking place each day must be quite a bit of money so they're not gonna complain!

I don't see any reason at all why they couldn't speed it all up if they wanted to, it's possible to do a same day CHAPS transfer if required at some charge to the customer so the capability is there for quicker transfers. When you take out cash, that is registered instantly on your balance. There is no way every transaction is manually checked, it's nearly all computerised so there must be a built in delay.

Glad

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].