Maturing Term Deposit could be issued by cheque- Not I hope!

SallySunshine

I have a Term Deposit maturing with the Clydesdale Bank in the middle of December and have just received my options with them.

Since they are laughable I will not be reinvesting with them and am withdrawing the funds to transfer elsewhere.

However looking at the maturity withdrawal terms I am rather concerned that it states;

Payment will be made by electronic transfer (where possible) to your nominated account by the next business day following the maturity date of your Term Deposit.
Alternatively we will send you a cheque within 5 business days following the maturity date of your Term Deposit.

It's the "where possible" that I'm concerned about.
I have an account that I want the funds to be deposited a.s.a.p.
The options form gives the boxes to put the account details in for electronic transfer so what could be the problem?

I rang up the Clydesdale to clarify this and was given a standard "non-answer". there shouldn't be a problem but if there is a cheque will be sent.
there certainly won't be a problem with my bank accepting these funds, as I've already checked.
I have stated I do not want a cheque, firstly it could take 5 business days to arrive, secondly my bank is over 25mls away so it would have to be posted to them, thus losing interest all the way.
Before anyone posts there wouldn't be much loss of interest, yes there would, it is quite a significant amount.

Not very happy about this but even more annoyed that there is no clear explanation as to why there may be a problem with electronic transfer

Anyone any thoughts on this?

Ifts

They are telling you they will do an electronic transfer and the money will be in your nominated account the next day -

SallySunshine wrote: »

Payment will be made by electronic transfer (where possible) to your nominated account by the next business day following the maturity date of your Term Deposit.

The cheque option is only there as a back up should there be any reason they are unable to make the electronic transfer (not to deliberately send you a cheque just to keep hold of your money for a longer period).

Ive had many a fixed termer mature with similar options and even though the cheque option had been mentioned as a backup the money has always been successfully transfered via electronic payment to my linked account.

SallySunshine

Thanks for the reply.

No doubt the electronic transfer will be possible but I would have liked an explanation as to why it might not have been possible.

The date of maturity is very near the Xmas holiday period and I wouldn't like to think a cheque would be floating around with all the extra Xmas mail, plus the fact we will be away over that period, hence the concern.

I, too, have had many term deposits mature and have never , ever, had a problem with electronic transfers and never had a cheque dispensed to me in years.

Ifts

They are just covering themselves for all possibilities I suppose (computer system crashing, customer receiving account not accepting Faster Payment etc).

SallySunshine wrote: »

I, too, have had many term deposits mature and have never , ever, had a problem with electronic transfers and never had a cheque dispensed to me in years.

If it was me I wouldn't worry esp as you have already checked with your bank so there wont be a problem with them accepting a FP into the account.

opinions4u

Not all customers will have an account capable of receiving faster payments.

So the T&Cs take this in to account.

SallySunshine

Hi, thanks for all your replies.

I agree with all your suggestions, answers etc , it is a pity the customer service advisor at Clydesdale didn't come up with them!

Perhaps some financial institutions, instead of sending their staff on courses, would be better getting them to look on this site, certainly more realistic and straightforward answers and advice;)

SallySunshine

Oh dear,:(
just spoken to the Clydesdale again and it gets worse.

It seems their limit on sending faster payment is £5000 per day, except however if you have a special security token then it is 15k per day.
but........that's only if you have another account with them, and I don't.

However, if I had sent the funding to them by electronic transfer, I could have it all back that way, however it seems I had to send a cheque and looking back at the original paperwork it seems there was a problem with completing that application form and it had to be resubmitted.

So, I can either open an account with the Clydesdale and have the maturing funds put straight into there and then faff about sending so much a day to my bank, or give in and get a cheque.

Decisions, decisions:(

calypso_rhapsody

You do not surprise me Sally - I regard it as outrageous that so many institutions make such a rigmarole over returning your own money to you. This £5000 limit is a nonsense and i bet it was not spelled out in the T&Cs.

innovate

OK, whilst I agree Clydesdale often seem to be living in a different age from the rest of us, there is nothing really unusual about the particular arrangement you describe. It's the same or very similar elsewhere. It's also hardly going to be an earth shattering amount that you will potentially lose due to your money being in transit for more than a couple of days. Their security token is a relatively recent addition but many banks have a £10K a day max limit for faster transfers. If you must have your money a lot faster, they might do a CHAPS transfer for £25 or so - pretty much the standard rate with all UK banks.

You don't mention how much money is involved, but assuming it is the max £85K anyone should not exceed in any financial institution. Assuming further, after basic rate tax, you'll be lucky to get 2% AER anywhere these days. Also assume it takes 10 working days - 12 calendar days allowing for one weekend - to clear your cheque into your new account. The max you would lose in interest is some £50, probably a lot less. If you have less than £85K to transfer, it's obviously less. For £10K, it would be less than £4.

Seeing that some savings accounts still nowadays must be opened with a cheque, you may actually have lost nothing by not being able to deposit by faster payment.

You could, of course, still try and claim your loss of £4 - £50 from them but you would probably find that they will tell you that they have acted in accordance with their terms and conditions, and you'd most likely get nowhere with a claim, not even if you escalated it to the FOS. One of the main reasons you'd get nowhere is that the T&Cs weren't broken, and they were not unreasonable in the first instance. And you accepted them quite some time ago.

May be the lesson to learn here is to always check how you can get your money out of somewhere before you put it into there. It will help to avoid disappointment with other banks and building societies because all of them have limitations.

Ifts

SallySunshine wrote: »

It seems their limit on sending faster payment is £5000 per day, except however if you have a special security token then it is 15k per day.
but........that's only if you have another account with them, and I don't.

This reminds (& thanks for reminding me) me of a Fixed term deposit that I went with in Nov 2011 (3yr @ 4.3%) with Yorkshire Bank that matures Nov 2014.

Before making a deposit I asked how the funds were going to be returned to me at the maturity date and they told me I had to open a 'Ready Cash Account' with them and they will upon maturity of the FTD transfer the funds into it so I can withdraw the money from there or have a cheque posted to me.

They also said at the time that they may have an easier option to return customers money by the time my FTD matures and to enquire closer to the maturity date.
I think I will contact them 2-3 months before maturity to see what options there are

If it is a pain to get my funds back from YB (in my case) I will give them a wide berth in the future.

If you can please do come back here and report how you get on as Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank are trading names of Clydesdale Bank PLC (so chances are they have similar options reuniting maturing funds back to the customer).

innovate

Ifts wrote: »

If it is a pain to get my funds back from YB (in my case) I will give them a wide berth in the future.
.

Should have applied for their Current Account Direct - CAD - (4% AER until 2015) and their security token. Unfortunately, this seems to take 3-4 weeks to get processed so it might be too late for you. But then, as an existing customer, it may work a lot fast for you, especially if you already have access to their internet banking.

If you do have one of these CADs and a security token and internet access, you can get £15K out a working day by Faster Payment.

NB. Do you mean your account matures Nov 2014? In which case, you have oodles of time and no excuse not to apply for the CAD and security token ,:-)