My Barclays branch no longer has an address

EachPenny

PRAISETHESUN wrote: »

I just use the address of my bank's head office whenever I set up DD mandates, so I expect this would probably work for you in this situation as well.

I've used the generic central address before filling in online DD setups and been surprised when the confirmation from the provider has come back with the full local branch details substituted.

I'm speculating but I wonder if, rather than being outdated, the insurance company use the 'bank address' as some form of check/legal protection if things go wrong. By sending the money to a named payee at a specific address (even a generic national one) then they demonstrate an intention to pay a specific person (and specific account) rather than sending money to an account identified only by an apparently random string of numbers. Even if, for the purposes of day to day bank operations, the sort code and account number are the only things which matter.

JuicyJesus

The "bank address" field on these things is a holdover from the days when paper mandates needed to be sent around - these days everything is automated through AUDDIS. I'm not particularly willing to test this myself, but so long as the sort code and account number are correct you could probably put complete gibberish in these fields (or "don't know") and it'd probably all go through fine.

EachPenny

JuicyJesus wrote: »

The "bank address" field on these things is a holdover from the days when paper mandates needed to be sent around - these days everything is automated through AUDDIS. I'm not particularly willing to test this myself, but so long as the sort code and account number are correct you could probably put complete gibberish in these fields (or "don't know") and it'd probably all go through fine.

I think you are probably right, but the issue might arise where there is an error in the sort code or account number. If AnyInsurance Plc send £100k to account 20-99-99 12345678 in error then how would they demonstrate their intention to actually send the money to Mr Blogg's account with sort code 20-99-97 (accepting that real account numbers may have error detection features).

If the otherwise obsolete payee name and bank address were included in the transfer then the true intention could be supported using those details as evidence.

pelirocco

EachPenny wrote: »

I think you are probably right, but the issue might arise where there is an error in the sort code or account number. If AnyInsurance Plc send £100k to account 20-99-99 12345678 in error then how would they demonstrate their intention to actually send the money to Mr Blogg's account with sort code 20-99-97 (accepting that real account numbers may have error detection features).

If the otherwise obsolete payee name and bank address were included in the transfer then the true intention could be supported using those details as evidence.

They pay absolutely no attention the the bank address . My business account is with the Bank of Scotland , the address showing on my bank books is tedious to write out ,and wouldnt fit on a DD mandate easily anyway ,so I just fill in a very shortened version of it
In my experience I have found banks pay little attention to the payees name ,so I am sure they wont be checking the branch address

surreysaver

Its not Barclays that are the problem, its your insurance company.

JuicyJesus

EachPenny wrote: »

If AnyInsurance Plc send £100k to account 20-99-99 12345678 in error then how would they demonstrate their intention to actually send the money to Mr Blogg's account with sort code 20-99-97 (accepting that real account numbers may have error detection features).

They don't, they deal with the consequences of their mistake. The problem there isn't that there's a way to verify the error was an error, it's that the insurance company made an error.

piemandan

I opened my Barclays account online, I have never been in to a branch as all of the documents came in the post and went back in the post.

For all of the branch address questions, I just use their London city address.. Churchill Place or something like that. Never had a problem.