Where does my money go for two days?!?!

BenL

If Natwest still administer their own credit cards you are "benefitted" by it only being 2 days. If for instance MBNA handle the credit card the payment will go via the BACS system.

You paid on Wed 1st August - The transaction will get queued up in NatWest systems, they may debit your balance immediatley so you don't get an incorrect balance readout at an ATM for instance.

Overnight, 2am ish on Thur 2nd August, the payment run will happen and your payment will be sent to its destination. As the payment is internal to Natwest to save on BACS processing fees per transaction it will sidestep BACS and stay internal going to the credit card suspense account.

Sit there all day

Overnight, 2am ish on Friday 3rd August, payment/automated run will run through the suspense account checking the reference details from your payment (card number) and apply it to the credit card account.

Any incorrect details will mean this does not get applied.

A lot of companies e.g. Capital One work backwards as well through a few issues of card numbers incase customers haven't updated the bill payment/standing order they use.

Ben

Milarky

Some payments go quicker than the standard 2 working days - but it very much depends on 'from whom to whom'

Nationwide credit card and cahoot credit card have 'same day' payments facilities made internally. (There could well be many others..)

BACS transfers from Nationwide (current account) to Egg, Halifax, HSBC and Lloyds credit cards only take '1'* working day and arrive the next day - for some reason. This does not apply to 'personal' accounts however.

Debit cards payments to credit cards can be 'same day' or occasionally 'next day' [MBNA]

The standard cycle (until May 2008) though is '2'* working days


*I say '2' to mean 'Monday to Wednesday' because that's how delayed the transfer is, but the (confusing) terminology used by banks is that 'Monday to Wednesday' is '3' working days Mon-Tue AND Wed

jackieb

friday13 wrote: »

Just so others don't do what I did (don't laugh). I forgot to factor the floating time of the money over the weekend and included the weekend in my 4 working days. The money should have reached my credit card by Sunday 5th but was only recognised as arriving on Mon 6th followed by a double whammy of a late fee + interest. live and learn and won't be doing that again.

I've done this too, with my RBOS online bank account, into my RBOS cc account. I phoned them up and they paid the £12 fee back into my bank account. It's worth a try. I don't think they'd do it every month mind you.

sinizterguy

Even if they gave you back your money, your credit file will have a mark for missing a payment or something.