Bank accounts that tell you pending BACS payments

dunstonh

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known and shown on Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

colsten

dunstonh said:

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known is Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

These payments are obviously not happening in real time but some sort of batch processing. What motivates some banks to show these payments early, I don't know, but several now do do it.

flo22

dunstonh said:

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known and shown on Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

          Banks receive Bacs entries on day 2 but apply them on day 3, basically they sit on them for a day.

dunstonh

flo22 said:

dunstonh said:

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known and shown on Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

          Banks receive Bacs entries on day 2 but apply them on day 3, basically they sit on them for a day.

They arrive at the clearing house of the bank on day 2 and are applied overnight in batches and traditionally appear sometime around 2am to 4am.    What appears to be happening is that some are able to track the clearing house entry and not wait until the traditional batches are processed at branch level.   I wonder if this is easier with single sort code banks where there isn't a second processing hop.

wmb194

dunstonh said:

flo22 said:

dunstonh said:

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known and shown on Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

          Banks receive Bacs entries on day 2 but apply them on day 3, basically they sit on them for a day.

They arrive at the clearing house of the bank on day 2 and are applied overnight in batches and traditionally appear sometime around 2am to 4am.    What appears to be happening is that some are able to track the clearing house entry and not wait until the traditional batches are processed at branch level.   I wonder if this is easier with single sort code banks where there isn't a second processing hop.

This is nothing new. Six plus years ago someone at my Lloyds Bank branch would often call me on day two when they saw there was a large credit incoming.

flo22

dunstonh said:

flo22 said:

dunstonh said:

How can any bank do this as they won't know what is coming until it arrives apart from on weekends (where Monday BACs is known and shown on Saturday).  BACs payments are instantly cleared the minute it hits the account in the overnight run.

          Banks receive Bacs entries on day 2 but apply them on day 3, basically they sit on them for a day.

They arrive at the clearing house of the bank on day 2 and are applied overnight in batches and traditionally appear sometime around 2am to 4am.    What appears to be happening is that some are able to track the clearing house entry and not wait until the traditional batches are processed at branch level.   I wonder if this is easier with single sort code banks where there isn't a second processing hop.

A 'clearing house' would only be applicable for an Agency Bank where they are sponsored by a member bank, Agency Banks do have different timescales for applying the entries. 

The member banks received the files by 00.30 hours on day 2 and apply them after midnight on day 3.  Any bank can see the entries before day 3 if they choose to do so but most do not.  It would definitely be easier for 'single sort code' Agency Banks to give customers visibility earlier.