Why dont banks process things on Saturdays/Sundays?

Gromitt

kingstreet wrote: »

Do some banks work faster, as any cheque paid into my NatWest current account appears to be available to draw against on the third working day?

Although funds can be withdrawn, the Cheque can still be returned unpaid up until the end of the business day T+6

Moby_Tide

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

Oh I kind of expected a response like this when I mentioned the airliner example ! Are you an aerospace engineer ? I know that military kit can't fly most of the time due to maintenance c¤ck-ups - that's become almost traditional since Airwork bvggered up the wiring in a whole fleet of tornadoes and HMG bought a load of Chinooks that sat doing nothing because someone forgot to buy the video game stuff that went with it, but airliners are different now. Do airliners not fly on Saturdays and Sundays? You said it.
If you are a chartered engineer you will realise that none of these things is a closed system. If you are a chartered engineer then you are not so dense as to miss my point.

Modern airliners constantly update engineers on the ground of the health of the onboard systems. The levels of maintenance required are amazingly low and the downtime follows a sometimes planned and sometimes random pattern but that rarely means that 24/7 routes and schedules get interrupted.

So a c.50 hour A check every 500-800 hours flying time, up to 150 hours for a B check maybe twice a year (and this all assumes that nothing goes wrong at any point during that time). We won't even go for the heavy maintenance which is a few months strip down every half decade or so. My rough calculations puts an aircraft downtime at a minimum of 34 days (thats for maintenance only and not any pre-flight checks that need to be conducted that also sap time before every single flight). Add in the longer term maintenance and over time the aircraft are probably out of service and not flying for > 1 month per year, each and every year.

Trust you to find one of the few bank IT people who also used to organise the maintenance schedule for the BA fleet at Heathrow. What are the chances.

Southend1

callum9999 wrote: »

I can personally guarantee you that if I was forbidden from working weekends, my standard of living would plummet and I would be completely miserable. Oh, and I'd be sacked - supermarkets don't have much need for weekend workers who can't work weekends...

I suggest you get a better grasp of the English language and recognise that being "sick of xxxxx" doesn't literally mean I am medically sick... And I'm perfectly capable of reading things I disagree with - it's just your opinions on this matter are particularly abhorrent.

You're nothing but a hypocrite spouting absolute nonsense. If family time is so precious that laws should be made banning people from working weekends, then get off your computer and go and spend it with them... Moving your shopping from a Saturday to a Monday night doesn't save ANY time WHATSOEVER - it merely shifts the activity to a different day. A day that may be convenient to YOU, but is categorically not convenient for everyone. Unemployment is high enough as it is, your moronic suggestions would result in thousands of people being sacked and thousands more being cut back to part time.

I'm not going to respond to any of the points raised in your post out of respect for other posters whose enjoyment of the discussion any further responses in a similar vein to your last one may spoil.

The sad thing is that in amongst your vitriol you do make some intelligent points. It's a shame you're either unable or unwilling to express them in a constructive and adult way.

callum9999

Southend1 wrote: »

I'm not going to respond to any of the points raised in your post out of respect for other posters whose enjoyment of the discussion any further responses in a similar vein to your last one may spoil.

The sad thing is that in amongst your vitriol you do make some intelligent points. It's a shame you're either unable or unwilling to express them in a constructive and adult way.

Shame you don't respect my right to work weekends as well.

As I said before, if you are polite to me then I am polite to you in return. If you are not polite, then I will not hesitate to tell you exactly what I think of your crazy ideas. As to your whinging about vitriol, you have said people like me are greedy, impatient, greedy, selfish and greedy (direct quotes taken from your posts in this thread). And we are all these things ONLY because of the day of the week we choose to work or shop - not because we work too much or shop too much, but because we do so on a day of the week that you have dictated we shouldn't do. I will not be taking any lectures from you in civility thank you very much!

Southend1

callum9999 wrote: »

Shame you don't respect my right to work weekends as well.

As I said before, if you are polite to me then I am polite to you in return. If you are not polite, then I will not hesitate to tell you exactly what I think of your crazy ideas. As to your whinging about vitriol, you have said people like me are greedy, impatient, greedy, selfish and greedy (direct quotes taken from your posts in this thread). And we are all these things ONLY because of the day of the week we choose to work or shop - not because we work too much or shop too much, but because we do so on a day of the week that you have dictated we shouldn't do. I will not be taking any lectures from you in civility thank you very much!

*sigh*

Merry Christmas.

callum9999

Southend1 wrote: »

*sigh*

Merry Christmas.

You still don't see it do you!?

Oh well, Merry Christmas to you too.

Hominu

Bah humbug

londonTiger

opinions4u wrote: »

Why would they process 19th century pieces of paper using 21st century technology?

Do you think a horse and cart should enter the next F1 Grand Prix?

we normally dont have this issue but you do realise that BACS is completely unsecure. I don't think they even bother to check if the account name matches they just match the account number and sort code.

With a cheque at least you can guarantee that only the payee will be cashing in the cheque. If you post the cheque you can also verify the address as well.

In fact one of my vendors required me to receive the first two payments in cheque and then used bacs thereafter.

Gromitt

londonTiger wrote: »

we normally dont have this issue but you do realise that BACS is completely unsecure. I don't think they even bother to check if the account name matches they just match the account number and sort code.

BACS is no more for personal customers, its Faster Payments now.

londonTiger wrote: »

With a cheque at least you can guarantee that only the payee will be cashing in the cheque.

Again, only for personal customers. Companies can request third party cheque cashing ability, in which case, they don't care what it says on the cheque, they are only interested in the numbers along the bottom of the cheque.

So steal some post to get yourself a utility bill for id and anyone can cash your cheque at one of the many "Instant cash" shops. If they are lucky they'll get your cheque at the same time as your utility bill.

So in practice, cheques are LESS secure than faster payments.

innovate

For those who can't live without cheques. Mind you, you will have to use an app on your smartphone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25495962