Santander have froze my account

grumbler

colsten wrote: »

Not sure how the laws got into the issue over whether banks have efficient processes for clearing cheques.

I have never said that the clearing system was inefficient (although it possibly is). Stop misquoting me.
Quite the opposite, what I said was that because of the long clearing cycle extra checks can be done during this cycle without freezing an account.

Re the law and efficiency of investigation, AFAIK, the AML regulations give them as much time as they want to investigate suspicious cases while having accounts frozen and keeping the customers in the dark.
I am not aware of any restrictions.

But picking up the ball you threw: In a democracy, stupid laws get changed by people formulating better alternatives, and by mastering overwhelming support for those better alternatives. So may be you should start by formulating a law that prescribes to banks how to process cheques better than they do today, and then seek support for your revised process.

It's not my profession to formulate the laws. I am not the first one shouting about this problem, but our lawmakers that get paid for this have more important things to do.

"Innocent until proven guilty" - this basic universal principle for some reason was ignored in the AML regulations.

compbren

This has worried me as I have just opened my Santander account and want to transfer my £20k savings into it to earn max interest. I'm concerned now that they'll freeze my account.

SeduLOUs

compbren wrote: »

This has worried me as I have just opened my Santander account and want to transfer my £20k savings into it to earn max interest. I'm concerned now that they'll freeze my account.

Highly unlikely because this situation despite being concerning is very uncommon, and people make transfers and deposit cheques for substantially larger amounts every second of every day without any issue whatsoever.

If you want to be cautious (which is always wise when dealing with money) then make sure you have some everyday funds elsewhere - I presume you do anyway if this £20k is savings. Even if the account is then mistakenly frozen, it won't cause you financial difficulty in the short term whilst the situation is rectified.

Speculator

Paid in two cheques last week, both for over £15K without any problems.

dingdong3000

I also paid in a cheque for over 25k and no issues at all with Santander..

Armorica

pvt wrote: »

Absolutely!

We're in the 2nd decade of the 21st century and a clearing bank still requires 2 days before they will credit your account with the value, 4 days before they will let you withdraw against it, and 6 days before they guarantee it won't be whipped back off you. That's days. DAYS! And if it isn't a proper clearing bank, like a used-to-be-building-society-that-now-thinks-it's-a-bank, it will take even longer.

What progress we've made.

That's not correct. The same rules apply to banks and building societies (including those who think they are a bank). The distinction is between paying into a current account and a savings account.

And for the person who suggested the OP ask for the cheque back...Santander wouldn't have the cheque; HMRC or their bank would unless it had been returned unpaid (which doesn't seem to have been the case).

It's a good example of a case which should go through the bank's complaints procedure and then onto the ombudsman.