Leeds Building Society - invitation to come out of the dark ages

Cottage_Economy

To insist on transferring savings in the form of cheques rather than allow a digital transfer is archaic and outdated.

I deposited a savings cheque, sent to me by Leeds Building Society, on Tuesday morning only to find out today it won't clear with Nationwide until next Monday.

Part of it is my fault, as I thought funds from other banking institutions were the equivalent of cash. Now I know they are not and they must go through clearing like any other cheque. Valuable lesson learned, just wish I'd learnt it when I didn't have a large bill to pay :rotfl:

To get savings from Leeds Building Society in a hurry, like I just have, you need about 10 days from the request for funds until the money is cleared in your current account. Thank goodness I have other savings accounts to draw on, who do allow digital transfers.

No idea if it is faster if you have a LBS current account - presumably that allows you to transfer from one to the other online?

MK62

Same.....we recently had a fixed term bond mature......the only options were cheque and electronic transfer to a nominated account using CHAPS, at a £20 fee......no FPI option...:eek: , or even BACS.


As you say, a bit archaic by today's standards......

EachPenny

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

To insist on transferring savings in the form of cheques rather than allow a digital transfer is archaic and outdated.

I deposited a savings cheque, sent to me by Leeds Building Society, on Tuesday morning only to find out today it won't clear with Nationwide until next Monday.

Part of it is my fault, as I thought funds from other banking institutions were the equivalent of cash. Now I know they are not and they must go through clearing like any other cheque. Valuable lesson learned, just wish I'd learnt it when I didn't have a large bill to pay :rotfl:

To get savings from Leeds Building Society in a hurry, like I just have, you need about 10 days from the request for funds until the money is cleared in your current account. Thank goodness I have other savings accounts to draw on, who do allow digital transfers.

No idea if it is faster if you have a LBS current account - presumably that allows you to transfer from one to the other online?

Not sure why your criticism in the thread title is all aimed at Leeds BS when you say that part of the problem is your misunderstanding of the cheque clearance process, and the considerable length of time taken to clear the cheque is partly down to Nationwide.

I paid a Notts BS cheque in to my Santander account (in branch) on Monday afternoon and the funds were available to withdraw on Tuesday morning.

Banks are slowly coming out of the dark ages when it comes to cheque clearance times.

Also, why did Leeds send you a cheque in the post? They are able to do electronic payments (e.g. on account maturity) - was that option not available to you?

Cottage_Economy

EachPenny wrote: »

Not sure why your criticism in the thread title is all aimed at Leeds BS when you say that part of the problem is your misunderstanding of the cheque clearance process, and the considerable length of time taken to clear the cheque is partly down to Nationwide.

I paid a Notts BS cheque in to my Santander account (in branch) on Monday afternoon and the funds were available to withdraw on Tuesday morning.

Banks are slowly coming out of the dark ages when it comes to cheque clearance times.

Also, why did Leeds send you a cheque in the post? They are able to do electronic payments (e.g. on account maturity) - was that option not available to you?

While part of the issue is cheque clearance times, that is down to statutory law (apparently) and not a lot that Nationwide can do about that. That is what Nationwide told me on the phone so I would be interested to know how you could access your fund from Notts BS the day after depositing it in your current account. It shows as currently credited to my account but I cannot access the money until the cheque clears.

I was told that Nationwide is trialling cheque imaging software in some branches to speed up the process so I wonder if that's what Santander does?

I had no other options available to me to get the money but cheque. I queried it on the phone and was told my account had no options for transfer bar that.

To get that money I had to request it online (Thursday 7th) wait for a cheque (Tuesday 12th), deposit cheque (Tuesday 12th) and cheque should clear Monday 18th.

Hence the title of the thread being about Leeds. If they had a better system I would able to avoid a slow cheque clearer like Nationwide because I would have done all the transactions I needed to do digitally.

Cottage_Economy

MK62 wrote: »

Same.....we recently had a fixed term bond mature......the only options were cheque and electronic transfer to a nominated account using CHAPS, at a £25 fee......no FPI option...:eek: , or even BACS.


As you say, a bit archaic by today's standards......

I didn't even have electronic transfer as an option, although if I did I wouldn't have paid £20 to do it anyway. It would have negated a significant proportion of the interest earned on the savings last year.

ManAtHome

If you have a LBS instant access account you can transfer out online. I thought they converted matured fixed-term accounts to instant - is it just that you weren't set up for online banking?

pafpcg

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

No idea if it is faster if you have a LBS current account - presumably that allows you to transfer from one to the other online?

I'd accept that LeedsBS can be awkward on occasion, particularly when you're keen on getting access to matured funds - they don't make it easy!

My partner and I have a joint instant access account (opened decades ago and holding a nominal balance of £1) which allows internet access and we've set-up nominated external bank accounts to which we can transfer funds. In the past, when a fixed-term account has matured, funds would be automatically transferred to the instant access account from which we could transfer the funds to the nominated external account and the funds would be sent the next business day. When our latest regular saver account matured in January, we were given an option to send the maturing funds direct to a specified external bank account if that bank account was already a nominated bank account on an existing LeedsBS account - that's what we did and it worked, though the funds didn't arrive until the next working day - cumbersome and needing to be set-up well in advance but much faster than a cheque!

With LeedsBS, it pays to understand how the funds will be returned before committing to a fixed-term account...

Cottage_Economy

ManAtHome wrote: »

If you have a LBS instant access account you can transfer out online. I thought they converted matured fixed-term accounts to instant - is it just that you weren't set up for online banking?

They did, and I'm set up to access my account online and check it, etc., but if I want the money I have to request it and it is sent to me as a cheque.

I have rung, queried this and been told I can have a cheque and that's it (unless I want to pay £25 for CHAPS, which I don't as that negates a portion of the interest earned).

Cottage_Economy

pafpcg wrote: »

When our latest regular saver account matured in January, we were given an option to send the maturing funds direct to a specified external bank account if that bank account was already a nominated bank account on an existing LeedsBS account - that's what we did and it worked, though the funds didn't arrive until the next working day - cumbersome and needing to be set-up well in advance but much faster than a cheque!

With LeedsBS, it pays to understand how the funds will be returned before committing to a fixed-term account...

I wonder if this is what it was; there was no nominated account already on there to transfer the money to and when I wanted the money no option to put one on. I guess I thought as the money was coming from my current account every month that it would be a simple proposition for it to go back the other way.

As I said, an archaic system.

veryintrigued

Last two regular savers I've had mature with them I've been able to register my maturity instructions online and also received them to my nominated account electronically.

Easy as that

EachPenny

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

While part of the issue is cheque clearance times, that is down to statutory law (apparently) and not a lot that Nationwide can do about that. That is what Nationwide told me on the phone so I would be interested to know how you could access your fund from Notts BS the day after depositing it in your current account. It shows as currently credited to my account but I cannot access the money until the cheque clears.

I was told that Nationwide is trialling cheque imaging software in some branches to speed up the process so I wonder if that's what Santander does?

Yes, it is the new 1-2-2 imaging system. See Section 5.4.(ii) here:-
https://www.santander.co.uk/assets/s3fs-public/2018-10/general-tcs-and-important-information-ca-savings_0.pdf

Nationwide claim to be doing the same thing, so their claim about "statutory law" is somewhat misleading:-
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/support-articles/services/cheque-imaging

You might want to ask when the technology they started to roll out some time ago will finally get to your branch. (they might be busy rolling out 'Nationwide Radio' and new uniforms instead :think: )

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

I had no other options available to me to get the money but cheque. I queried it on the phone and was told my account had no options for transfer bar that.

What was the name (/issue number) of your account?