Bank Holidays - why does this affect your online account view

skyranger

In this day and age, why do standing orders not show as being paid or pending on a weekend and bank holidays?

Long story short but a combination of things meant that I had a large payment come in on the 27th which whilst showed as credited, apparently hasn't (Tax rebate) and won't do till tomorrow.

So I transferred it out and combined with standing orders not showing as debited out due to bank holiday / weekend, its meant I've had to spend a couple of hours trying to work out where I am with my finances.

Why doesn't the online system show an uptodate view of your account when its bank holiday when surely the whole thing is just automated?

[Deleted User]

The whole bank holiday thing is outdated and should be abolished. Give workers the public holiday days as extra annual leave. The only non banking days should be Dec 25 and 26 and Jan 1st. Abolish Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day Holiday, Late May Holiday and August bank holiday.

pinkdalek

The clue is the in word.

glider3560

To overcome this problem, all banks and other businesses would have to do the same.

Imagine this scenario: if I have a direct debit due to be paid out on 26th December. I get paid on the 25th of the month. At the moment, my direct debit will be paid out on the 27th and I get paid on the 27th. Win.

If, however, my bank did not respect bank holidays but my employer's did, my direct debit would get paid on 26th, taking me overdrawn. I wouldn't get paid until 27th.

See where I'm going here? Basically, everyone would have to be on board before anything is likely to change.

callum9999

glider3560 wrote: »

To overcome this problem, all banks and other businesses would have to do the same.

Imagine this scenario: if I have a direct debit due to be paid out on 26th December. I get paid on the 25th of the month. At the moment, my direct debit will be paid out on the 27th and I get paid on the 27th. Win.

If, however, my bank did not respect bank holidays but my employer's did, my direct debit would get paid on 26th, taking me overdrawn. I wouldn't get paid until 27th.

See where I'm going here? Basically, everyone would have to be on board before anything is likely to change.

Not really - that would be your fault for scheduling the direct debits so close to pay day. There are already quirks in the system - Natwest will take money for direct debits paid on a Monday on the previous Friday.

That being said, someone in banking IT did post an explanation on here a long time ago explaining why in the 24 hour instant age the systems still work like this and it did make sense. I can't remember what it is - but it was something to do with the transition from manual to automatic record keeping etc.

glider3560

callum9999 wrote: »

Not really - that would be your fault for scheduling the direct debits so close to pay day. There are already quirks in the system - Natwest will take money for direct debits paid on a Monday on the previous Friday.

How many days should one allow between being paid and paying bills? Last Christmas, payments on the 25th December wouldn't have been paid until 29th December.

Westie983

All my FP, SO are showing this weekend with tomorrows date, so I can still see all of the payments online, with the following banks

Halifax
Lloyds
TSB
FD
HSBC
Nationwide
Nawest

COOP is showing todays date, so BH doesn't matter here.

Payments due in are not showing yet, but some of my DD have gone out of Natwest with tomorrow's date so was taken on 1st.

callum9999

glider3560 wrote: »

How many days should one allow between being paid and paying bills? Last Christmas, payments on the 25th December wouldn't have been paid until 29th December.

That's up to you, but more than 1 day!

I'd personally give it a week or so if I specifically needed the wage to pay the DDs, though I have enough money to pay them at any time of the month so mine come out on whatever random day the provider set when I signed up.

Kim_13

SO's for my regular savers are scheduled for the 1st of the month so I moved the money over last week, thinking they'd have credited yesterday as it was an internal thing. For Nationwide, my Flex Regular Saver balance has increased but when clicking into the account, the transaction doesn't show. I wonder if it will show tomorrow, dated tomorrow.

For TSB, nothing at all has happened and the payment is still sitting in my current account.

Won't be making that mistake again.

Feral_Moon

Westie983 wrote: »

All my FP, SO are showing this weekend with tomorrows date, so I can still see all of the payments online, with the following banks

Halifax
Lloyds
TSB
FD
HSBC
Nationwide
Nawest

COOP is showing todays date, so BH doesn't matter here.

Payments due in are not showing yet, but some of my DD have gone out of Natwest with tomorrow's date so was taken on 1st.

Same here! All the DDs that were due out on 30th April (Saturday) have gone out but are dated as 3rd May, however, the SO due in the same day hasn't arrived yet.

Also, I made a FP into my TSB on Saturday but that is also showing as dated 3rd May which means I'll lose last month's interest payment now :mad:

Kim_13

Feral_Moon wrote: »

Same here! All the DDs that were due out on 30th April (Saturday) have gone out but are dated as 3rd May, however, the SO due in the same day hasn't arrived yet.

Also, I made a FP into my TSB on Saturday but that is also showing as dated 3rd May which means I'll lose last month's interest payment now :mad:

FP's can take until the end of the next business day to arrive as per the terms and conditions, so to guarantee the interest, you'd have needed to do it on Thursday.