Standing order dates

Newly_retired

Recently set up a number of standing orders between accounts, to fund regular savers and to meet T&C of funding.
Last weekend those set up for 5th did not happen till Monday 6th.

Is this the case for all banks and Building societies that SOs only happen on working days? If not, then my recycling plans could have a few hiccups.
Why the delay anyway, in an automated transaction?

Dobbibill

yes this is right. S/O's will not go out on a weekend or a bank holiday. Be careful how you set things up as it could go wrong and cause the hiccups.

DB

mgdavid

also be aware that with some banks committed transactions that fall at a weekend may have the funds reserved on the Friday night so ensure the balance / OD limit will cover it.

Hazzanet

Dobbibill wrote: »

yes this is right. S/O's will not go out on a weekend or a bank holiday.

Unless it's Tesco Bank.

Newly_retired

Sorry, my thanks button seems to have disappeared.


So, I may need to review some of my transactions?
If every back is consistent, there won't be a problem, but if some banks send money out and others haven't sent the money in, I could go OD.
That is a pain.


Two SOs I set up for today have not yet happened- and it is not a weekend. I thought outgoing money normally goes out first thing in the day.
Looks as though I may have to do some moves manually- and I thought I was making life easier for myself with SOs.

phona

RBS and NatWest do weekend and Monday transactions a bit strangely. The money arrives/leaves and affects your balance on Saturday, but the transaction is dated Monday.
For example, on Monday 6th Oct I was due to receive some money into my RBS account. On Sat 4th the payment arrived, my balance was updated and I transferred the money to somewhere it could earn some interest. Both the arrival and departure of the money, which happened on Saturday, were dated Mon 6th.

If the funds that come out on Saturday put you into unarranged overdraft, you will not be charged until at least the Monday. I screwed up (due to poor planning) around the Easter weekend but the money arrived on the Tuesday (first working day after) to cover it so I didn't get charged.

To stress, this only applies to RBS group, but is an example of how different banks do things differently. You'll have to name the banks if you want advice for a particular set.

Personally, I do my interest-getting juggling manually. It takes a few minutes each month and saves having to work out exactly the sort of thing you're talking about. If you must use SOs, the middle of the month is probably safest but you will lose a wee bit of interest on the interest.

colsten

phona wrote: »

If you must use SOs, the middle of the month is probably safest but you will lose a wee bit of interest on the interest.

For the last couple of years, I have been doing all my minimum monthly account funding by SOs at the start of each month. I lose no interest ever as the end-of-day balance on all accounts is always the same as the starting balance, or higher if the "SO day" coincides with the day interest gets paid. Never experienced any issues with the dates but all my accounts always have sufficient funds for the SOs, so any delay by a day or two wouldn't send me into an unarranged overdraft. Banks involved are FD, HSBC, Santander, TSB, Lloyds, BOS, Yorkshire Bank and Nationwide BS.

phona

colsten wrote: »

For the last couple of years, I have been doing all my minimum monthly account funding by SOs at the start of each month. I lose no interest ever as the end-of-day balance on all accounts is always the same as the starting balance, or higher if the "SO day" coincides with the day interest gets paid.

But you may miss the funding requirements, as per today's MSE news. My point was just that banks are complicated animals so it's not trivial to second guess what they will or will not do.
I recommended to arrange standing orders for the middle of the month because that's what I would do (if I didn't want to log in and transfer manually each month). There's sometimes a trade-off between maximising interest and simplicity.

colsten wrote: »

Never experienced any issues with the dates but all my accounts always have sufficient funds for the SOs, so any delay by a day or two wouldn't send me into an unarranged overdraft. Banks involved are FD, HSBC, Santander, TSB, Lloyds, BOS, Yorkshire Bank and Nationwide BS.

That's good, I'm glad you haven't had any problems. But this rather depends on how you run your accounts and why - that is, your strategy of simply having more than enough doesn't apply to everyone. For example I have an interest-free overdraft with RBS (graduate account) that I keep deliberately maxed out as the money is earning interest elsewhere. This makes it possible that I'll slip up and end up in unarranged overdraft so I keep a closer eye on payments in and out.

jennifernil

I started out using SOs for our Reward and Vantage accounts, about 12 in total at the time, but taking weekends and BHs into account meant money was often earning no interest, so after a few months I went back to doing it manually.

We now have Reward accounts, BOS Vantage, Club Lloyds, TSB Classic Plus and Santander.

For the HBOS ones I just circulate the required amount from our main account around all the accounts, usually on the 2nd of the month, and on the same date move money in and out of the LLoyds accounts and the TSB accounts, only takes about 15 minutes to do.

Santander is funded by SO from our main account as some bills are paid out of it to get the cashback.

I find this much easier than the original SOs.

Armorica

Standing orders are only transferred between banks on working days (and typically before 6am unless there is a hiccup). If some banks claim to make standing orders outside that, they are using a slightly different product type to achieve the same effect.

Different banks have very different approaches to standing orders. Some want date of the months, some can arrange for each the first Monday etc.

Hazzanet

If you are using Tesco, do be careful. My SO is set to send £750 to my Santander 123 on the 4th, and the money should get sent back on the same day by Santander.

As you can see here, it is set up for the 4th at Tesco.



You will see that on 04/10/2014 (Saturday) the money is debited from the account; you also see the corresponding cash returning on 06/10/2014 (Monday) because Santander only send on weekdays.



The money was received from Tesco by Santander on 04/10/2014 which confirms the transaction took place on the weekend:



Hope that helps.