How is this fair.

Kayatno2

In my home my husband and I have one central bank account which our pensions and pay goes into. On the 1st of each month I have a standing order to another account which my debit card is linked to and which I use for general shopping and day to day household expenses. I would like to know why the bank is unable to complete this standing order on the 1st if that date falls over the weekend but they will allow the account to go into an over draft and charge interest during that time. Surely this is all automated. It seems very unfair with little chance of recourse. 

EarthBoy

Most banks don't process standing orders on weekends, they never have done.  You will either have to take this into account when using your debit card, or switch to one of the newer banks which do process standing orders at weekends, such as Tesco, Monzo, or (I think) Starling.

colsten

Control the debits on your account by paying with a credit card (which you pay off in full each month), and by moving any DDs from the end of the month to the beginning. Monitor your regular and your ad-hoc outgoings with a personal finance manager (e.g. MS Money, Ace Money), or with a spreadsheet, or even with pen and paper.

pramsay13

It does seem a bit archaic, but I set up my standing orders for the 26th of a month to ensure that they are in for the 1st of the month.

Thrugelmir

The 1st isn't always a working day.  Build a buffer to tide you over. Alternatively pay money over on dates nearer to when your pensions are received. 

eskbanker

Kayatno2 said:

In my home my husband and I have one central bank account which our pensions and pay goes into. On the 1st of each month I have a standing order to another account which my debit card is linked to and which I use for general shopping and day to day household expenses. I would like to know why the bank is unable to complete this standing order on the 1st if that date falls over the weekend but they will allow the account to go into an over draft and charge interest during that time. Surely this is all automated. It seems very unfair with little chance of recourse. 

If things are so tight with the debit card account that a couple of days funding 'delay' can cause it to go overdrawn, have you considered having your income paid into that first, and then transferring the surplus from there onwards to your central account, rather than the other way round?

getmore4less

Stick a 1 month buffer in the account.
Don't know why people have payments dependent on other money coming in, always have a gap to allow for tyhings to go wrong, far easier than trying to clean up the mess if pay/pensions get delayed for any reason.

ratechaser

Frankly it is a PITA in this day and age that for the majority of banks, some transactions will happen based on calendar days and others only on business days.

Yes there are manual timing workarounds that we can use to give a buffer, but it's hardly simple or intuitive to a lot of people... plus I choose to run accounts that pay no interest (well to be fair that's most of them right now!) as close to flat as possible, and would rather not have money sitting idle in them...

dunstonh

I would like to know why the bank is unable to complete this standing order on the 1st if that date falls over the weekend but they will allow the account to go into an over draft and charge interest during that time.

Payments due in (e.g. salary) will be processed earlier by the employer to arrive on the Friday.  S/Os and D/Ds go out on the Monday (or next working day if bank holiday).  This avoids people going overdrawn and being charged interest.

It is not possible for an account to actually be overdrawn on a Saturday or Sunday.      Although pending transactions due to go through on Monday (or card use) will show over the weekend but not actually be taken until Monday.  So, no interest is charged.

real time banking has been proposed since the 80s.  The problem is that it needs all of the banks systems to be updated to allow it and not all of them were in a position to do it.  Some have built hybrid systems that are a mixture of real time and conventional but the major banks are not there yet.  And the hybid nature of transactions can cause some to be confused.

As things become more automated, it will happen. However, far too much of it is still manual and that would mean needing to employ increased workers on Saturday and Sunday.  Increasing costs unnecessarily which most of the public are not willing to pay and in reality don't need it to happen.   

colsten

dunstonh said:

I would like to know why the bank is unable to complete this standing order on the 1st if that date falls over the weekend but they will allow the account to go into an over draft and charge interest during that time.

Payments due in (e.g. salary) will be processed earlier by the employer to arrive on the Friday.  S/Os and D/Ds go out on the Monday (or next working day if bank holiday).  This avoids people going overdrawn and being charged interest.

It is not possible for an account to actually be overdrawn on a Saturday or Sunday.      Although pending transactions due to go through on Monday (or card use) will show over the weekend but not actually be taken until Monday.  So, no interest is charged.

Some banks, e.g. Tesco, Starling and Monzo, do process SOs on non-working days. Also Virgin Money does weird things, which I haven't fully figured out yet, with SOs at weekends. So with them, you can get overdrawn if your SOs rely on incoming BACS payments which won't arrive until the next working day.

born_again

dunstonh said:

It is not possible for an account to actually be overdrawn on a Saturday or Sunday.      Although pending transactions due to go through on Monday (or card use) will show over the weekend but not actually be taken until Monday.  So, no interest is charged.

Sadly it is.
If you have say a balance of £10 on Friday and make a debit card payment of £20 on Friday. It is possible it will debit same day or overnight.
Thus leaving account overdrawn on the weekend.

More card payments are now debiting the same day now.