Over the counter payment into Business account 27 February 2013 at 6:09PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Budgeting & Bank Accounts 7 replies 805 views

naeemsyed

Hello All

My wife and I started a child-minding service about 4 years ago. Having had a personal account with Santander we decided to open our business account with them as well. All has gone well till now, when some of our customers tried to pay their fees over the counter when they were in their own Banks. The transfer was not allowed. I checked with Santander and they told me that they do not offer over the counter payment into a business account whether it’s through their own counters or through any other bank counters.

My query is then how do the bills get paid over the counter into the accounts of the utility companies. Those payments must be made into the utility company’s business account.

Is there anyway I can resolve this problem? Is it that Santander that does not offer this service and other banks do? Can anyone recommend a bank that would offer this service?

Your advice and comments will be most appreciated.

Thanks

henm2

Santander do not offer a counter service for business accounts. Other banks such as HSBC, Nat West, Barclays, TSB Lloyds, Co-Op do.
If you stay with Santander one way your customers can pay you is by bill payment/faster payments (these are one off payments each time) generally using their own banks telephone/internet banking services. Payments reach your account supposedly within 2 hours but in actual practice it is often within seconds.
Alternatively shop around to transfer your business account to another bank. You will often find free banking offers for a limited time or even permanently free within certain criteria e.g check out HSBC's Business account direct tariff.

JuicyJesus

Santander don't offere the Bank Giro Credit service, where you use a credit slip to pay into the accounts of another bank over your own counter using cash or a cheque. However your customers should be able to transfer into your account using Internet or Telephone banking.

naeemsyed

Thanks. I will check around. I see you recommend HSBC. In your views would this be the best or do you recommend another?

gillianlouise

Do you pay for your Santander account? Surely your customer can pay you by faster payment. Especially if you pay ZERO charges for your account. or do you have a newer account that has set charges.
If you have free banking I would think it is worth sticking with them and have your customers pay into your personal accounts and you transfer the payments over.

TheBanker

naeemsyed wrote: »

My query is then how do the bills get paid over the counter into the accounts of the utility companies. Those payments must be made into the utility company’s business account.

The utility companies pay for this service. As they have lots of customers it is worth the banks making the service available to them. As you only have a small number of customers, it would not be economical to offer you the service.

BusinessIsBusiness

gillianlouise wrote: »

Do you pay for your Santander account? Surely your customer can pay you by faster payment. Especially if you pay ZERO charges for your account. or do you have a newer account that has set charges.
If you have free banking I would think it is worth sticking with them and have your customers pay into your personal accounts and you transfer the payments over.

As has been said the kind of free account you have doesnt exist anymore, anywhere in the banking market. It might be worth seeing if customers can pay by direct bacs transfer. Also Santander are currently piloting a counter service for business customers.. so it might be on the cards in future?

System

Get them to pay you by cheque or via Faster Payments / BACS

naeemsyed wrote: »

Hello All

My wife and I started a child-minding service about 4 years ago. Having had a personal account with Santander we decided to open our business account with them as well. All has gone well till now, when some of our customers tried to pay their fees over the counter when they were in their own Banks. The transfer was not allowed. I checked with Santander and they told me that they do not offer over the counter payment into a business account whether it’s through their own counters or through any other bank counters.

My query is then how do the bills get paid over the counter into the accounts of the utility companies. Those payments must be made into the utility company’s business account.

Is there anyway I can resolve this problem? Is it that Santander that does not offer this service and other banks do? Can anyone recommend a bank that would offer this service?

Your advice and comments will be most appreciated.

Thanks