Savings Direct Debit no longer available

calisto

I just logged on to transfer money from my Icesave Savings to my Coventry First account and noticed that on both systems the option to transfer using Direct Debit / Direct Credit is no longer available.

Coventry will allow existing regular DDs to transfer money in, but will no longer accept new / one off DDs. Transfer in has to be done by BACS.

Icesave now only do the transfer money out by BACS / CHAPS. The Direct Debit option is no longer there.

Has anybody else noticed this? Seems like a conspiracy to me.

This is a major PITA as the DD although it took a couple of days there was no lost interest.

BACS is a con, taking 4 days with at least 3 days lost interest. The only effective time to do a transfer is on a Monday too, otherwise get hit with another 2 days lost interest over the weekend.

This is a lot of money on large sums. On £100k its between £52 - £86 in lost interest :mad:

calisto

Am I the only one being subject to this?

noh

Icesave always has been Direct Debit in and BACS/CHAPS out. So no change there.

Nigel

Milarky

Yes, I was aware that the Coventry website has a feature for paying into accounts by direct debit but when quizzed about this they confirmed it is only available to customers who set these up before they stopped making any more. On the one hand it must involve them in a little time and effort to set these up - so they are 'saving' there, I suppose. But on the other if a lot of existing customers use direct debit already they will still have to service these going forward. So I can't see it being worth their while operating a 'dual' system in the short term.

From next May (not long now) 'Faster Payments' kick in and the advantage of direct debits is largely lost. But does that mean that large users of DD for paying in (like ING) will suddenly stop using this method?

I think the difference between DD and faster-BACS payments in the future will be that DDs can only be called on a Mon-Fri basis whilst BACS can be sent (and will arrive) seven days a week (ideal for that credit card bill with a Sunday 'due date'!)

calisto

Milarky and Noh,

Thanks - that explains it. I previously transferred into my Coventry account from the Icesave account, by using the Cov DD Transfer in. I have never used the Icesave BACS out method before, and just assumed they also had a DD out facility.

So it appears Cov have decided to remove this feature. Bah!

Stompa

FWIW IceSave -> Coventry First BACS out transfers are fairly fast. I did one last week, instigated first thing on Monday morning and it appeared in my Coventry account first thing on Wednesday morning.