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

innovate

Caladan wrote: »

I think the usual turnaround time is around 14 days, but I'm guessing there, and it depends on how quickly the person who received the money responds.

Not according to what you can read in the press, and what people report on forums. Both, the receiving and the sending bank usually seem to just show sloping shoulders forever, and hide behind DPA and such stuff.

Caladan wrote: »

How would you do it differently?

I don't have the full answer but if I had it, I wouldn't post in on an Internet forum - - because the Consultant who will sort this issue will earn a fortune from it.

However, I would, for starters, make it law that no money can be FPed to a non-existent bank account, unless the sending account holder insists that they want to send the money regardless. This would eliminate the issue of money going into a bank's holding account (aka 'black hole') because the sender mistyped one or more numbers. With the FP infrastructure in place, this would be a doddle to implement (and in fact, the technology for the instant verification of sort code/account number is quite freely available to anyone - http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/bank-account-validation/). It seems quite staggering that this isn't already part of the FP implementation.

JustAnotherSaver

I've had problems with Santander also.

Their 'Faster' Payment service has often meant sending the payment at 6pm one day for it to finally turn up in the account some time AFTER i leave for work at 7:30am the following morning. It's there by the time i get back home at 6pm though the following day.

Has happened numerous times & not just the first or 2nd time i've sent payment to an account.

Caladan

innovate wrote: »

Not according to what you can read in the press, and what people report on forums. Both, the receiving and the sending bank usually seem to just show sloping shoulders forever, and hide behind DPA and such stuff.

I can only speak from my own experience (and our processing centres deal with this kind of query rather than the branch) but I've found we tend to make the trace within about a week and follow it through from there. I do agree the process is slow and inefficient (U.K. banking - even when it modernises it's archaic).

innovate wrote: »

I don't have the full answer but if I had it, I wouldn't post in on an Internet forum - - because the Consultant who will sort this issue will earn a fortune from it.

Can't argue with that

Mind you, I doubt it'll be a consultant, I reckon it'll only be resolved once regulators force it on the banks as they have with the upcoming switching service or cancelling CPAs.

innovate wrote: »

However, I would, for starters, make it law that no money can be FPed to a non-existent bank account, unless the sending account holder insists that they want to send the money regardless. This would eliminate the issue of money going into a bank's holding account (aka 'black hole') because the sender mistyped one or more numbers. With the FP infrastructure in place, this would be a doddle to implement (and in fact, the technology for the instant verification of sort code/account number is quite freely available to anyone - http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/bank-account-validation/). It seems quite staggering that this isn't already part of the FP implementation.

I'm also somewhat surprised at this - Whenever I send a payment on behalf of a customer it always checks the sort code and account number (not the account name, the tech isn't that good and it'd actually cause more problems if it tried to match the account name).

Perhaps some institutions just don't take advantage of this technology?

The only other thing I can think of where this isn't enough is if it was a head office account (like many building society accounts are) where it has a sort code, say 700500 and account number 90000000 (numbers made up for the purpose of this excercise) which then also requires a reference number to tie it to the individuals account - When the payment system checks the account details they're correct, but because the reference is missing/wrong it gets moved into a suspense account.

Mind you, if that happens, they usually send the money back within a couple of days.

Kind regards,
Cal

innovate

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I've had problems with Santander also.

Their 'Faster' Payment service has often meant sending the payment at 6pm one day for it to finally turn up in the account some time AFTER i leave for work at 7:30am the following morning. It's there by the time i get back home at 6pm though the following day.

That is well within the max time allowed. FPs must arrive by the end of the next business day.

mrchiggles

The software used to do these sorts of checks is very complex and the rules within the software will be frequently changed and adapted depending on the level of fraud threat on that day, emerging patterns of referrals, etc.

In short it's impossible to predict if/when/why your payments are held. As innovate mentions, as long as they are reviewed and sent within the rules then there's nothing you can do about it/complain about.

pmduk

When a payment lands in a suspense account, the receiving bank should be required to return it after a specified period for recredit to the originating bank. It would solve a lot of problems.

jamesd

Caladan wrote: »

Whenever I send a payment on behalf of a customer it always checks the sort code and account number (not the account name, the tech isn't that good and it'd actually cause more problems if it tried to match the account name). ... Perhaps some institutions just don't take advantage of this technology?

There are some sort codes for which there are account validity checking rules in place and others where there aren't.

VocaLink distributes this information in the form of the Extended Industry Sort Code Directory. Here's a link to the modulus-based checking version that you can scan to get some idea of the way it works.

The BIC/IBAN system is a fair bit more reliable in this area. If I was able to I'd use it for domestic payments also.

jamesd

Caladan wrote: »

I don't know what the actual legislation is around this (probably should in fairness) but I do know that with the new faster payment system once the money is gone it's gone

It's in a number of places:

1. Payment Services Directive, article 74 (2):

"(2) Where the unique identifier provided by the payment service user is incorrect, the payment service provider is not liable under regulation 75 or 76 for non-execution or defective execution of the payment transaction, but the payment service provider—
(a)must make reasonable efforts to recover the funds involved in the payment transaction"

2. The payment recall procedure in SEPA edition 4.

3. The datalink file spec for Faster Payments: "Appendix 3 – Field 126 – Return Codes
As the name suggests, Returns are the return of a previously sent outward Faster Payments. They can only be received into an account that was used to make the original payment", some values of which are:
"00000006 Beneficiary Account Name does not match Beneficiary Account Number"
"00000007 Return requested by sender of original payment"
"00000009 Beneficiary not expecting funds/instructed return"

So at least in theory, there should be both best effort made to recover and support in the system for both recalling payments and returning unexpected payments, since provisions for this are available.

However, as you know, the PSRs require mandatory stopping of payment support and it took several years before institutions implemented systems to do this, notably for recurring payment authorities.

Caladan wrote: »

we can trace the payment with the other bank, and in cases of fraud advise the other bank we have concerns about their account and that bank can then consider inhibiting it, but recovering the funds is ultimately up to the customer and the other bank (legally the recipient shouldn't spend the money, but it is tricky to prove in court).

Well, that is the common industry position, but I have reservations about whether it is an accurate reflection of the obligations under the PSRs and a full use of the facilities provided for in the FP spec.

Caladan wrote: »

I do understand why people send these small £1 payments (although surely it's easier to just check the sort code and account number again with the beneficiary as you'd need to contact them to confirm the £1 has gone in anyway) and I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying it's more likely to flag up.

I almost always do this, including when I'm trying the first transfer between newly entered accounts of my own. A low value initial payment should, if customers are prudent, be of decreasing value as a way to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate payments. The more the institutions emphasise lack of recall capability, the stronger the incentive and education of customers that they must always do a low value payment first becomes.

You should expect the guidance to always do a low value payment first to be ubiquitously given here, and elsewhere. It's a lot less painful to have £1 going missing than much more and anyone can get account details wrongly typed, including in a way that passes modulus checks if you get unlucky.

If institutions dislike this and want to preserve what remains of the value of a low value payment as an indicator of possible fraud they must provide some other way out for consumers. That can be better error checking of account details, recall, some combination or anything else that can credibly reassure consumers that it is not prudent to make low value payments first. At the moment there's a steady stream of media coverage about people losing money, not about them being protected.

10_66

Whenever I make a payment from my 123 account, I first receive an automated call on my mobile and then immediately afterwards on my landline asking me to confirm the last two payments made from the account and to confirm date of birth, and then I receive a text that provides me with a code I'm supposed to text back to them. This has only recently started to happen, and I find it very annoying. Does anyone else have the same happen with their 123 account?

innovate

10_66 wrote: »

Whenever I make a payment from my 123 account, I first receive an automated call on my mobile and then immediately afterwards on my landline asking me to confirm the last two payments made from the account and to confirm date of birth, and then I receive a text that provides me with a code I'm supposed to text back to them. This has only recently started to happen, and I find it very annoying. Does anyone else have the same happen with their 123 account?

Nothing of that kind for me. Seems a bit over the top but they will have their reasons. Have you called them to ask why, and/or to complain?