Slow faster payment

OceanSound

Made faster payment for just over £1000 from First Direct (FD) current account to Halifax reward current account. The faster payment took over four hours (came through overnight). I did the payment at 08:45PM, checked every hour or so until 12:45AM. then went to bed.

Next morning when I checked Halifax account, it had come through. there is a strong possibility that it may have been held for some checks. Particularly because I had made a small £1.10 payment beforehand to ensure I have correct account number and sort code. As this post says 1 small payment followed by a large payment is likely to be held for checks.

But what I don't quite get is that I had made a payment of over £1000 from that same Halifax current Account to FD before. So the money was going back to the account that it had come from! Is the fraud checking system oblivious to this fact?. Why on earth would FD want to hold back the faster payment if it was returning to the same account it had come from?

Presumably, the recipient bank (FD in this case) will be aware of where my initial payment had come from, even if it's not shown to the recipient (me in this case).

BTW. at around 11:00PM I made another small payment from FD to Halifax, just to see if it would release the £1000 payment. It didn't. The small payment came through about half hour later.

PeacefulWaters

It's a tough job trying to understand the flow of Faster Payments from one place to the other.

Accepting that the money might not reach its destination until close of business on the next bank working day is all we can really do.

colsten

Faster Payments must arrive no later than the end of the next business day. Checks can happen on any payment, and planned or unplanned technical outages can also happen anytime, particularly overnight.

OceanSound

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

..Accepting that the money might not reach its destination until close of business on the next bank working day is all we can really do.

colsten wrote: »

Faster Payments must arrive no later than the end of the next business day. Checks can happen on any payment, and planned or unplanned technical outages can also happen anytime, particularly overnight.

No later than the next business day?... I keep seeing no later than 2 hours.

Here's what Barclays have to say:

What is the Faster Payments Service (FPS)?

This service is for sending electronic, sterling payments in the UK.

As long as the receiving bank or building society uses Faster Payments too, and the amount is within the limit, then the payment will arrive almost immediately (though sometimes, it can take up to 2 hours).

You can make these payments using Online Banking, in your Barclays Mobile Banking app, using Telephone Banking, in a branch or using self-service machines.

Make sure you always look at the payment guidelines on your invoices or bills – payments can sometimes take up to two hours, though they’re usually instant.

To check whether the bank or building society you’re sending money to can receive Faster Payments, use our sort code checker.
We’ll always send your payments through FPS, where possible.

AND Hsbc:

..The majority of these schemes are based on 24/7/365 availability and are real or near-real time. In the case of the UK’s Faster Payments Service, there is a maximum two-hour cycle, but in practice most payments are credited within seconds."

No mention of 'next business day' on either.

ColdIron

Perhaps take it from the horses mouth

http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/faqs

As a minimum, all financial institutions in the UK must abide by the Payment Services Directive (PSD) - this states that any payments made by mobile, internet or phone banking (including standing orders) must arrive by the end of the following business day at the latest.

AirlieBird

HSBC/FD will tend to perform security checks on the first large payment of a newly setup payee.

OceanSound wrote: »

No later than the next business day?... I keep seeing no later than 2 hours.

Here's what Barclays have to say:

AND Hsbc:


No mention of 'next business day' on either.

The regulations require payments to be credited to the recipients account by the end of the next working day. This is different to the faster payments system.

Once entering the faster payments system, payments will be instant to the receiving account or at least within 2 hours, which may not be the account to which the payment will be credited for institutions that operate through a holding account.

Some institutions have additional steps to take to allocate it from the holding account to your account outside the faster payments system and so it will take longer than 2 hours to credit it to your account. Some institutions will only send requests to the faster payments system in batches rather than in real-time or in a single daily batch and so, as far as the customer is concerned, the payment may not arrive until the next working day from when the request was made

OceanSound

AirlieBird wrote: »

HSBC/FD will tend to perform security checks on the first large payment of a newly setup payee.

With HSBC, after making a payment, it's at least made clear:
"Your payment has been sent and will usually be credited to the beneficiary's account within 2 hours, subject to our normal fraud checks."

With FD I only see the message:

"this payment will usually be credited to the beneficiary's account within 2 hours. the payment cannot be recalled."

Some institutions have additional steps to take to allocate it from the holding account to your account outside the faster payments system and so it will take longer than 2 hours to credit it to your account. Some institutions will only send requests to the faster payments system in batches rather than in real-time or in a single daily batch and so, as far as the customer is concerned, the payment may not arrive until the next working day from when the request was made

I've found a list of participating members:

Abbey (now Santander UK), Alliance and Leicester (now part of Santander UK), Barclays, Citi, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks (National Australia Group), Co-operative Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide Building Society, Northern Bank (Danske Bank), Northern Rock, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (including NatWest and Ulster Bank).

Recent additions: Metro bank, and starling bank.

Is anyone aware which banks/building societies from the list above sends faster payments in batches?

BTW, the list above only mentions HSBC. I presume, FD doesn't need to be mentioned because they are part of HSBC. I know they are definitely part of the scheme. (My first small payment went through instantly).

mgdavid

What problem are you trying to fix?

OceanSound

mgdavid wrote: »

What problem are you trying to fix?

Please see #7:

With HSBC, after making a payment, it's at least made clear:....

YorkshireBoy

Check your FD account T&Cs, page 15. See the word "usually"? That's their get-out should they wish to carry out additional checks.

[Deleted User]

Basically faster payments isn't the promise of near instant payments it was made out to be, just merely 50/50 chance it will be made same day.