Making money transfers

mattmarsden

Hi everyone.

I know somebody that is wanting to transfer some money from an Abbey National account across to a Skipton Building Soc account.

Abbey have informed them that the only way is a telegraphic transfer which occurs a fee of £25. The transfer is of approx £3000.

Is it possible to write a cheque to yourself to transfer the money or is there another way because it seems to me ridiculous that it should cost you £25 to access your own money!!!!

Matt

mk-donald

The issue is probably about ACCESS to the money and from when it starts to earn interest.

To move directly from one bank a/c to another bank a/c is usually done through BACS and is free - ie clearing - leaves day 1 and arrives day 3. Those are CLEARED funds - ie as good as cash.

To move same day you have to PAY a "telegraphic fee" - hence the £25 but the CLEARED funds should leave that day and be on the a/c on the next working day (ie after the overnight balance updates).

If the £3000 is in an Abbey a/c for which they have a cheque book then if you TAKE or POST a cheque to the BS they credit it to the a/c but (1) it wont start earning interest until the number of days set by the BS has elapsed (2) wont be able to be withdrawn until a number of days set by the BS has elapsed. (Of course this assumes the Skipton a/c allows for cheque deposits - it's all down to the T&C's of a/c's of course.)

So main issue is whether you want access to the £3000 to withdraw it from the BS - which presumably you dont as otherwise you'd just withdraw it from Abbey.

That £25 is 0.83% of the £3000, and if say the £3000 didn't earn interest for say 1 week at today's best around 7.00% gross interest thats 1/52nd of 7% ie 0.13%. So probably best to just pay in a cheque and lose 0.13% ie £4. (Meanwhile it would still potentially be earning interest at Abbey until the cheque did get cleared from that a/c.)

Finally that £3000 sum sounds suspiciouly like an mini-cash ISA amount. If it IS an ISA tax-free a/c then you shouldnt be withdrawing it but s/be doing an institution->institution transfer so that the tax-free status can be preserved. That would require you do appropriate paperwork for both instutitions and they usually send a cheque between the institutions.

mattmarsden

Cheers for that.

As regards the ISA business, it isnt for that, its simply because my friend now works for the Skipton Building SOC group so gets a high interest staff account, the money isn't needed to be withdrawn either!

So can you confirm that a BACs transfer can be done? Or is there nothing to stop (as long as cheques can be payed into the new account) you writing a cheque to your own name???

Cheers,

Matt