Is it normal for Santander to delay every faster payment sent?

dezza

About a month ago I opened a new Santander account, after switching from Natwest.

Since then I've made a number of Faster Payments, and each one, except one, has been held for fraud checks.

These payments are going to my other accounts held with other banks, family members and bill payments - some of which I have paid multiple times, and they are still being held.

I understand from some other threads on here that usually it's only the first couple of transactions which are delayed, but subsequent ones are instant, so it seems confusing as to why this is still happening with mine.

Also I know that banks, under the rules, have to action the payment by the end of the next working day, however this was hardly the case with my old Natwest account, where 99% of the time payments were instant.

Thanks for any advice

Drp8713

Nope.

I use Santander as the current account my wages go into. On payday i spread some of my salary out to my 3 other current accounts with Nationwide, Lloyds and RBS with each payment being from £200 to £500 and by the time i log out of the Santander app and into the other apps the money is always there before i am.

innovate

dezza wrote: »

I understand from some other threads on here that usually it's only the first couple of transactions which are delayed, but subsequent ones are instant, so it seems confusing as to why this is still happening with mine.

In my experience, it's quite random what they hold up, and you don't actually know why the hold up occurs. But it's not just "the first couple of transactions" that might take more than a couple of hours (but less than the max time they are allowed to take) - - - it's usually the first larger payment to a new payee that takes longer.

dezza

Ah ok, thanks for clearing that up. I was going by an old thread on here where a couple of people said it's usually the second payment that gets delayed - but obviously that's not the case.

Seems to be very random and different between different customers - just glad it isn't just me it's happening to.

innovate

In my experience, it is often (but by no means always) the second payment - - particularly if your first payment is a test payment for, say, £1, just to confirm you really got the sort code and account number of the recipient correct. If you follow that £1 with a significantly larger payment almost instantly, that could well send the alarm bells ringing because this sort of approach might well be used by fraudsters.

The fact that you, as a perfectly innocent person, get caught because the pattern suggests you might be a fraudster shouldn't put you off making your test payments for new payees before you send larger sums. It's a bit of a PITA if there's a hold-up but in the end, it's probably in our interest that Santander have got those annoying fraud checks.

dezza

I understand the reasoning of it, just wish it wouldn't happen every single time to payees I've paid already on several occasions.

I notice that delayed payments first come up on online banking as 'Rejected', then an identical payment is made shortly afterwards, which goes through. Do these rejected payments come up on your monthly statement as such?

innovate

Don't know whether they show on statements (and can't be bothered to check). But if you are seriously annoyed by continuing hold-ups/temporary hold-ups for the same payees, why not raise a written complaint? https://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/Satellite?appID=abbey.internet.Abbeycom&cid=1210607166846&leng=en_GB&pagename=Abbeycom%2FPage%2FWC_ACOM_TemplateA2

May be they will shed some light on why you get pulled up as frequently as you say you do. And may be they'll even pay you £20 or £30 for the inconvenience.

dezza

Was thinking of putting in a complaint but I'd imagine they'd just quote their obligation of processing payments within the next working day timescale.

Might be nice to see why this keeps happening though so I might well follow through on your suggestion.

Caladan

Sounds like you have some kind of high risk flag on your account to be honest (new customers are always treated with caution - new customer making lots of weird payments even more so).

As to the person who encourages making £1 payments to beneficiaries to check the account details - This might seem like a good idea, but if I was reviewing one of my customers accounts and saw that happening frequently I'd be onto the Fraud/Money Laundering office before you could say "TIMESCALES"

dezza

Hopefully it'll settle down with time when my 'activity' is more recognisable by the bank - just not something I've had an issue with any other bank.

innovate

Caladan wrote: »

This might seem like a good idea, but if I was reviewing one of my customers accounts and saw that happening frequently I'd be onto the Fraud/Money Laundering office before you could say "TIMESCALES"

Sounds you are an employee of a bank who reviews payments customers make online?

If so, why would you pull up those of your customers who know that banks won't co-operate in the slightest when payments have been made made in error, and therefore make tiny test payments before they commit bigger sums?

As an aside, I don't actually find the "send £1, then pile in" approach generally as an issue. I appreciate that literally all banks are monitoring these sorts of transfers very closely, and I applaud them for doing this. Though I know they know that a £1 payment, followed by one or more much larger payments, isn't enough reason to suspect wrong-doings.