First Direct - Slow Transactions

Daveb

Im a new First Direct customer and since using the account I am shocked how horrendously slow transactions are to appear on the account.


I contacted First direct and they just replied saying they don't show pending transactions.


Does anyone else find this. Can cause a few issues and is a bit annoying.

username

I have never really had an issue on mine, transactions always show for me (mostly) next working day which seems to be the standard for most banks.

Occasionally I get the odd transaction take an extra working day or two to show up, however, you have to realise this is also dependent on the merchant too. So if they have one of those standalone card machines and do not submit the transactions at close of business each day they will not get polled until they next do so. Larger businesses also tend to submit everything at the end of the working day.

If you need to account for every spend to the penny why not just keep the receipts until they clear through and then check the transactions off or record spends in a spreadsheet/notebook/app etc?

Personally I find the pending transactions feature rather useless - people like Amazon/TFL/AFDs charge a nominal amount (£1, £0.10 etc) and then replace it with the actual amount so you don't get a true picture.

I have a 'pending' £1 charge from Amazon stuck on my credit card for weeks even though I have already been charged the real amount.

colsten

First Direct use ageing systems. If you want something more modern, you need to look at the likes of Starling.

Having said this, you should never rely on your current account provider to tell you how much you have spent. username has already given you some reasons. There are others. The only one who can possibly know how much you have spent, and how much you are committed to spend shortly (DDs, SOs, petrol, tickets etc) is yourself.

colin79666

You can see pending transactions in the app but not on their web interface. As above they appear to have invested virtually nothing in technology in 10 years. I stick with them due to their regular saver and mortgage potential. Even their phone service has been slipping over the last couple of years.

Ergates

Daveb wrote: »

Im a new First Direct customer and since using the account I am shocked how horrendously slow transactions are to appear on the account.


I contacted First direct and they just replied saying they don't show pending transactions.


Does anyone else find this. Can cause a few issues and is a bit annoying.

Define "Horrendously slow".
What types of transactions?

Even if they're not showing pending transactions, most should be visible the following day. Is that not the case?
If card payments are taking longer than 1 day to appear, it is usually the merchant, or the merchant's bank that is the problem, not your bank.