Please delete my forum account delete delete delete delete delete runabout outside

masonic

Deleted_User said:

However, having in the past opened a new account requiring a minimum £25,000 deposit, and no less was much more than the molehill you refer to!

I'm surprised by this. Many accounts will not be able to send £25k in a single transfer. Personally I'd accept a slighly lower rate from a more reasonable provider. But then again, if my current account provider didn't offer something other banks did, I'd open an account elsewhere, which you don't seem to want to do.

eskbanker

Deleted_User said:

Nebulous2 said:

I’m not sure I understand this. In My Santander account, which has the most payees,  I have a list of 15 or so, most of them being me. They have very imaginative names, such as Lloyds or Natwest. Family members tend to have a Christian name only. I’ve never had a message saying the account name doesn’t match.

Most of them would have pre-dated the name- matching process, but once set up they just go through without any other warnings. I know they are right, because I’ve used them repeatedly and they have worked. 

My old payees were exactly like you describe. We've now moved out of the dark ages and into the "Confirmation of Payee" age. Due to the pathetic rates of interest these days I now open new accounts almost weekly and  pretty much all my "dark age" payees have had to be dumped and everything now is guided by the new age. It's essential that I need "Confirmation of Payee" to work properly without the Santander & Halifax mockery..

No, it isn't!  You can carry on exactly as you always have, naming your payees as you wish and not taking advantage of the new CoP checks - it won't be any further forward but isn't any further backwards either....

Catplan

Lightning360 said:

For Santander, I can set a reference which means I can see the difference between accounts with the same name. Can you not do this?

I was about to say the same certainly on the Santander app I can set a reference account1, account2 any identification I choose to distinguish between accounts, even with the same provider. 

colsten

Deleted_User said:

colsten said:

You don't appear to be familiar with software development, otherwise you wouldn't claim that adding just 1 additional optional field would have taken just a minimal effort [compared with the other changes they've had to implement].

Well maybe having been working as a programmer, systems analyst, IT consultant developing, implementing and supporting major IT projects, teaching & giving talks at conferences & universities both in this country and abroad for many decades brands me as a bit of an novice?

Perhaps you failed to read or understand what I said about adding the 1 field to the payee details. I suggested if it was done as part of the complete project for banks implementing the full Confirmation of Payee project and adding just a single field to payees would add very little to the total work involved. Of course now, with Santander & Halifax failing to include that as part of the project, I realise they are faced with a far larger task to add that extra field retrospectively. This is why when you start an IT project it should be thought through in detail before you actually start the programming.

Oh dear. How could they have gone ahead with the COP development without calling on you?

RG2015

The banks do appear to have implemented CoP in many different ways. With hindsight, it may have been better to have had a common structure for the entire industry.

I know that it is not entirely analogous, but if it had been implemented in a similar fashion to the Faster Payments initiative, it would not have attracted so much criticism and debate. 

ItsComingRome

Deleted_User said:

EssexExile said:

I don't get it. You put what you want as the account name, the bank says it doesn't match, are you sure? You say yes you are sure and carry on.

Thus making the massive step forward of the "Confirmation of Payee" to me a total waste of effort. No matter how good we are, we all make mistakes. I've made mistakes in my life but have you never in your life ever made a mistake such as getting a number wrong?

Change banks then.

Problem solved.

masonic

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

However, having in the past opened a new account requiring a minimum £25,000 deposit, and no less was much more than the molehill you refer to!

I'm surprised by this. Many accounts will not be able to send £25k in a single transfer.

My accounts allow me to send £25k with a single transfer.

Your bank permits you to do it, so you think it is reasonable for an organisation to require it of all their customers? If so, you have an inconsistent position between the topics of large single transfers and CoP: on the subject of £25k transfers you seem to be ok with it as long as your bank supports it, whereas with CoP "it's essential" all banks support it (and support it in the same way) or it's "a total waste of effort"?

I personally want savings providers to support customers being able to send multiple payments up to a total in the case of a large investment in a fixed term account, and provide options other than Faster Payment.

I should also clarify that I absolutely support banks like Santander and Halifax investing in the development of useful account features like payee nicknames, but I strongly oppose any campaign to abolish Confirmation of Payee (or sow seeds that it is pointless) on the basis that it doesn't work in every situation.

inspectorperez

Referring to original post by picks.

I have read the first few responses to your post, but not the rest. These were enough to provide a flavour of the reaction by those who do lots of posting on the Banking thread.

I have to say, in respect of Santander, I entirely agree with you. The reference facility on Santander is a real pain in that it adopts your first reference as a default which then necessitates a painful process to insert a new reference for subsequent payments which may be of an entirely different nature. The account name is also a curious scenario in that I am unsure where your bank actually display your correct account name. Is it for instance the name which appears on your bank statement, or could it be the name which appears on your debit card, or indeed your bank credit card? In my case, these are all different, with variations of middle initial, full Christian name, first initial of christian name. 

There is certainly room for improvement by Santander.

Having said that, the system did prevent me from making an erroneous payment on return from holidays. I was provided with an incorrect account number by the dog kennels we use in a text message by the business concerned who made a typo with one incorrect digit! A subsequent phone conversation clarified the error and saved me from the hassle of having to deal with an incorrect payment - so I definitely support the principle without shadow of a doubt and I would say thank you to the poster for taking the time and effort in composing what is IMO a very relevant and appropriate series of comments.

Just as a final comment re Santander system, I tend to memorise the mandate numbers with my own payments to distinguish which is which on the payee list. I have about 10 payees bearing my own name and this is good memory training at my advanced age😀

EarthBoy

It's quite possible to take advantage of COP and still use your own preferred account name/reference.

What I do is to enter the official account name, and allow COP to check it. If it confirms that it's correct I then hit the back button and amend the account name to whatever I fancy.  The app might run the COP check again and tell me that it's wrong, but that doesn't matter because it's already confirmed that it's correct in the first step. 

This way I get the best of both worlds. 

kaMelo

To add my tuppence worth, I do think the way Santander have implemented CoP could have been better. The reference field could be used when it's not required for other reasons like credit card or building society payments but it shouldn't really need a workaround.
As mentioned earlier, RBS/NatWest has an extra step after CoP has taken place, where you enter your own choice of Payee Name and this is what appears in your payee list. They identified a potential problem and came up with a solution so it seems strange that Santander failed to do so too.

Having said that it's not really the worst thing to have to deal with. The information you need is there to see, it may just take a little longer as you need to read it and cross reference.