real time balance

Cliecost

Hi,

Is there any bank in the UK that shows real time balances? So if I spend it will show straight away an accurate figure of what is available.

Does such a bank exist or do they all take various amounts of time to show accurate information?


Thanks.

Ballard

Debit card transactions can take a few days to show. I've learned from this forum that some contactless are done offline so the bank won't know about them until they get uploaded. This will clearly effect all banks.

pmduk

The most accurate balance will always be the one you keep yourself. There are many apps to keep a running total if you can't do it in your head, or use a pen and paper! Ballard's already explained a bank doesn't necessarily know the transactions you've made.

notafan

Some of the new challenger banks are working on it example getmondo.com

You can also ask your bank to swap you to a card that checks every transaction so your balance will update.

Also anecdotally having used most of the banks i noticed hsbc and santander tend to show up quicker - example in past pay for petrol it will often highlight a £1 is waiting a day later where as other banks have just shown the full amount a couple of days later. I've even used cards at the same places sometimes earlier with lloyds, halifax & natwest and they've shown after other banks. - think this is to do with each bank processes them after they are aware.

For contactless if you have an iPhone use apple pay when it's accepted as it tracks this on your phone for contactless or app purchases. I'm sure andorid pay will do something similar.

There's a lot of people on here (no disrespect to any of them) that seem to think the best way is to carry a pen and paper about or have an amazing memory. But it wasnt that long ago people would have thought swapping from vinyl to cd's was unnecessary and then to mp3 OR pigeons to letters, emails, telephones and mobile phones.

There's a few people who are also adamant real time balances cant be done citing the system - but thats because they are only thinking about how it currently works and not what could be changed or improved. You wouldn't necessarily have a terminal get authorisation in future. If the likes of apple and google are getting involved in payments then there should be some more interesting stuff going on too.

Banks havent had an incentive to do it because they keep the money as long as possible or its in their interest to have you close to the mark to charge you for going over.

They've also underinvested for years using a ton of legacy systems and its one industry waiting for its own netflix or uber.

Hopefully mondo, atom, starling and everyone else will force them to up their game and we'll see some really good innovation.

agrinnall

notafan, how do you suggest that a bank updates it's record of your balance when they don't even know that a transaction has taken place? The only way would be for all transactions to be advised to the bank when they are done, which would cause a significant deterioration in customer service where the merchant is unable to be online but would otherwise have been prepared to do an offline transaction.

CLAPTON

Cliecost wrote: »

Hi,

Is there any bank in the UK that shows real time balances? So if I spend it will show straight away an accurate figure of what is available.

Does such a bank exist or do they all take various amounts of time to show accurate information?


Thanks.

if you were trying to pay for a purchase (petrol, restaurant etc) and for whatever reason there was no real time connection, would you be content for the transaction to fail and for you to have to pay by other means?

notafan

agrinnall wrote: »

notafan, how do you suggest that a bank updates it's record of your balance when they don't even know that a transaction has taken place? The only way would be for all transactions to be advised to the bank when they are done, which would cause a significant deterioration in customer service where the merchant is unable to be online but would otherwise have been prepared to do an offline transaction.

Agrinall it could be done in several ways - there is never an only way to do anything just the only way someone has currently thought of.

They choose not to know because of the volume of transactions that go through - which was thought about way back when, well before broadband or fibre internet. They could be easily be set to be always on exchanging data.

It could also be done through your own mobile - which could report payments to your bank instantly through your own data connection.

It doesn't necessarily need to tell the bank right away either, it would just need to tell you. It could reconcile it later - although its possible to do both.

The systems could easily be overhauled which would actually be a vast improvement on customer service and experience.

notafan

CLAPTON wrote: »

if you were trying to pay for a purchase (petrol, restaurant etc) and for whatever reason there was no real time connection, would you be content for the transaction to fail and for you to have to pay by other means?

When is there not a real time connection now?

The petrol station or restaurant would have its own connection to be able to offer debit/credit payment anyway.

IF they didn't then i'd be happy to use my own connection - loads of restaurants are already allowing you to pay via app without waiting for a bill which is processed on your own device.

There's no reason a pay at pump petrol point couldn't record the transaction instantly now - except for the fact someone has chosen to set it up in the way it has been.

ChiefGrasscutter

The really big companies like supermarkets also run their own in-house finance clearing house.
So cards that they have seen before/established will be processed off line without being checked real time with the bank.
Then they will be downloaded en-masse to the banks at a later time (like overnight)
Those cards not seen will more likely be authorised online real time at the transaction time.

This all lessens the risk of hold ups at the tills when a bank card authorisations channels get overloaded.

benjus

All this is fine if you're happy to restrict yourself to only making online transactions. But in the real world people don't have fully reliable connections with no downtime, and current systems are set up to cope with that.

I was at a fairly big chain restaurant a few months back with a group of people from work, and of course everyone wanted to pay by card. Unfortunately the restaurant discovered that all their card systems were down. So they had to dust off the old card imprinter and use that (one of us volunteered to pay the whole bill then we paid him back).

As for using my own device, I frequently find myself without a mobile signal.

In summary, yes it's currently just about feasible but you'll be a bit stuck if you are in a situation like the one above. Most people prefer the convenience of having those backup solutions available, even if it means they can't see a realtime balance.

notafan

benjus wrote: »

All this is fine if you're happy to restrict yourself to only making online transactions. But in the real world people don't have fully reliable connections with no downtime, and current systems are set up to cope with that.

I was at a fairly big chain restaurant a few months back with a group of people from work, and of course everyone wanted to pay by card. Unfortunately the restaurant discovered that all their card systems were down. So they had to dust off the old card imprinter and use that (one of us volunteered to pay the whole bill then we paid him back).

As for using my own device, I frequently find myself without a mobile signal.

In summary, yes it's currently just about feasible but you'll be a bit stuck if you are in a situation like the one above. Most people prefer the convenience of having those backup solutions available, even if it means they can't see a realtime balance.

So do it for tiny fraction of the time when this wouldn't even be an issue.

However normally this wouldn't even be an issue.

You'd need to have the business have their network fail, them not to have any backup. Your mobile signal would not work 2g/3g or 4g, neither would anyones you're with AND there was no wifi available.

As part of the 4g auction this was the rule...

"One of the 800 MHz lots of spectrum will carry an obligation to provide a mobile broadband service for indoor reception to at least 98% of the UK population by the end of 2017 at the latest"

I think o2 bought this spectrum (which means vodafone will likely match this given they share masts through cornerstone). The other two will more or less match this too. So unless your in the back of beyond most day to day stuff wont be a problem.

So again you've got the business with the connection and your own and we're still pretending we have to act like its the 60's.