NatWest Online Banking WARNING

Rosa_Damascena

eskbanker said:

skev69 said:

Well excuse me for thinking if I asked my bank for a balance then that would be my balance ?

Perhaps you're confusing the two separate concepts of 'balance' and 'available balance'?

If you ask your bank for your balance then they'll tell you your balance and it'll be 100% accurate, in that it'll reflect all completed transactions actually processed at that point in time.

Your 'issue' arises from a mistaken belief that a notional available balance, derived from both completed transactions and authorisations (that may or may not turn into actual settled transactions), will be able to predict whether such authorisations will actually be converted into settled transactions or if they'll just time out....

FD gives me both. 

I'm just sayin'.

gsmh

Rosa_Damascena said:

FD gives me both. 

I'm just sayin'.

I think you're on your own here. It is a fact that where transactions appear initially in your account they are not cleared immediately - unless they are cash withdrawals from an ATM, or from a transaction you have initiated yourself from within your digital banking platform. It has been like that forever. We used to deposit cheques and it would take at least four days for them to clear - so your account balance for a few days after submitting the cheque was not a 'true' reflection of your balance. You book in to a hotel and often funds are earmarked in case they need to be used. I have been using bank accounts for nearly 50 years and I have never been able to look at the balance of my bank account as an accurate reflection of what I have left to spend. In fact things are much better now in that many banks allow you to see pending transactions. That never used to be the case. Natwest/RBS certainly does. The key, as others have pointed out, is to use a budgeting application. I do and I can see immediately what my balance is according to the bank so I can easily reconcile transactions, and my real, budgeted balance which includes things like direct debits coming up before the next monthly deposit of funds and uncleared debits.

I know many people who just look at their balance according to the bank as a way of budgeting and they fall into two camps. Those who have a large buffer of funds in the account so it doesn't really matter, and those who keep going overdrawn and end up in a never-ending cycle of overdraft charges and rejected transactions. The latter camp constantly moan and give banks 1 star reviews on sites like Trustpilot - as if it is the fault of the bank. Things will never change.

colsten

Rosa_Damascena said:

eskbanker said:

skev69 said:

Well excuse me for thinking if I asked my bank for a balance then that would be my balance ?

Perhaps you're confusing the two separate concepts of 'balance' and 'available balance'?

If you ask your bank for your balance then they'll tell you your balance and it'll be 100% accurate, in that it'll reflect all completed transactions actually processed at that point in time.

Your 'issue' arises from a mistaken belief that a notional available balance, derived from both completed transactions and authorisations (that may or may not turn into actual settled transactions), will be able to predict whether such authorisations will actually be converted into settled transactions or if they'll just time out....

FD gives me both. 

I'm just sayin'.

So does Natwest (see screenshots posted days ago in this thread). In fact, so do most banks.

Rosa_Damascena

Rosa_Damascena said:

GeordieGeorge said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

MovingForwards said:

Can't say I've experienced any problems, set up new payees, transfer money to various accounts and people. They (UK handler) even call every few months to see if there's anything else they can do for me.

I had a call from NatWest the other day, asking what my financial goals are. My main ambition was to access the money I'd so stupidly entrusted to them, it really is that basic.

In future it’s worth keeping a notebook with passwords etc so this doesn’t happen again.

Obviously you’ll need to use an obvious (to you) code rather than explicitly writing it all down, but it’s worth doing.

Its not a question of passwords, its an issue of service infrastructure that repeatedly failed for me yesterday.

Today is another day, and I retrieved my funds yesterday evening and have left the inadequacies and stress of NatWest behind me. This is one bank I shan't be troubling any time soon. l stand by my view that NatWest has been dysfunctional.

In a tacit acknowledgement of how badly I was served, NatWest has finally got on the front foot and tried to make amends. This was after I was so PO'd I chose preserving my own sanity over the formal complaints process which meant having to go through another exhausting series of miscommunications. They finally got my attention with a stealth boast.

So my final transaction has had some redeeming features but I cannot say I'll be rushing to use this account again.

eskbanker

Rosa_Damascena said:

eskbanker said:

skev69 said:

Well excuse me for thinking if I asked my bank for a balance then that would be my balance ?

Perhaps you're confusing the two separate concepts of 'balance' and 'available balance'?

If you ask your bank for your balance then they'll tell you your balance and it'll be 100% accurate, in that it'll reflect all completed transactions actually processed at that point in time.

Your 'issue' arises from a mistaken belief that a notional available balance, derived from both completed transactions and authorisations (that may or may not turn into actual settled transactions), will be able to predict whether such authorisations will actually be converted into settled transactions or if they'll just time out....

FD gives me both. 

I'm just sayin'.

Of course - as colsten says, most do!  The issue isn't the visibility of a calculated available balance, but its (inherently unreliable) accuracy....

colsten

eskbanker said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

eskbanker said:

skev69 said:

Well excuse me for thinking if I asked my bank for a balance then that would be my balance ?

Perhaps you're confusing the two separate concepts of 'balance' and 'available balance'?

If you ask your bank for your balance then they'll tell you your balance and it'll be 100% accurate, in that it'll reflect all completed transactions actually processed at that point in time.

Your 'issue' arises from a mistaken belief that a notional available balance, derived from both completed transactions and authorisations (that may or may not turn into actual settled transactions), will be able to predict whether such authorisations will actually be converted into settled transactions or if they'll just time out....

FD gives me both. 

I'm just sayin'.

Of course - as colsten says, most do!  The issue isn't the visibility of a calculated available balance, but its (inherently unreliable) accuracy....

Case in point: I paid for petrol at a Tesco petrol station pump yesterday, £20, with a debit card. The pump authorised £99. About 2 hours after the purchase, I checked my account. £1 showed as pending for Pay At Pump, and my available "balance including pending" was reduced by just £1. It still shows the same this morning. Clearly I know that my actual available balance is £19 lower than my available bank balance shows, because I know that I spent £20 on petrol. The retailer knows this, too, but the bank  will only know  as and when Tesco report it to them.

The debit card I used was a Tesco debit card but that's moot, as the same would have happened with the debit card of any bank. 

[Deleted User]

This all seems very long winded.

If I have £500 in my account and I spent £100, I know I have £400 available, whether the £100 disappears in 2 seconds, 2 hours, 2 days or 2 weeks. If I budget based on me having £500 because they money hasn't disappeared yet or because the pending transaction disappeared for a bit, I know I am onto a hiding to knowing as budgeting for £100 more than I have to spend is asking for trouble.

It doesn't need an app, pen and paper or a spreadsheet to tell me that I shouldn't spend more than £400

Thrugelmir

How did people cope when they used to write cheques? 

RG2015

Thrugelmir said:

How did people cope when they used to write cheques? 

I remember keeping a running balance on my cheque book stub. PS. I did know your question was rhetorical.

gsmh

Deleted_User said:

This all seems very long winded.

If I have £500 in my account and I spent £100, I know I have £400 available, whether the £100 disappears in 2 seconds, 2 hours, 2 days or 2 weeks. If I budget based on me having £500 because they money hasn't disappeared yet or because the pending transaction disappeared for a bit, I know I am onto a hiding to knowing as budgeting for £100 more than I have to spend is asking for trouble.

It doesn't need an app, pen and paper or a spreadsheet to tell me that I shouldn't spend more than £400

Very well put. In a nutshell. That's exactly how is is.