Natwest Switching Service

callistris

A few weeks ago I opened a Natwest account and chose the switching service to move all my DD's and SO's across.

Does anyone have any experience of how long this takes please?

davethorp

I can't speak for switching to Natwest. Although I have recently completed switches from Natwest to Lloyds and from Lloyds to Santander and both times the process took approximately two weeks (possibly a touch longer for the Lloyds to Santander switch as the Jubilee Bank Holidays fell in my switching period)

callistris

Thanks Dave for your reply, upon logging into my Santander account this morning I see that all my DD's and SO's have vanished, so looks as though the ball is rolling.

InsideInsurance

The switching service is actually managed by the BACS company and so it is fairly universal in terms of speed and quality.

davethorp

Worth mentioning too that your direct debits may not show up in Natwest internet banking until after the first time they have been collected. For some reason Natwest Internet Banking doesn't show new direct debits until they have been taken at least once

Hazzanet

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The switching service is actually managed by the BACS company and so it is fairly universal in terms of speed and quality.

Sort of.

Bank B asks Bank A for details of the Direct Debits (incl Service User Number) and Standing Orders. Bank B receives those details and lodges the Standing Orders on their system, Bank A then cancels them.

With the Direct Debits they use BACSTEL IP to generate an ADDACS line for each of the Service Users (payees) which notifies them of a change of bank. It's then up to the Payee to send two lines in their next BACS file (an 0C transaction to the old bank to cancel the DD there and an 0N to the new bank to set up the DD) to transfer across.

Many of the mess-ups where DDs haven't transferred over is where a Payee has ignored the ADDACS report and not sent the 0C and 0N transactions in their BACS files.

Source: I work for a DD processing company.