Is there a bank which doesn't hold outgoing payments 'for review'?

gsmh

I am moving some savings from Atom to Chip. To do that I had to transfer to my Starling account (the linked account), and then transfer it to Chip. It's only a couple of thousand pounds. The money arrived instantly in my Starling account, but when I attempted to transfer it to Chip I was asked some questions by Starling to make sure I had initiated the transfer myself to one of my own accounts. All well and good.  After answering the questions the funds are still marked as 'pending'.

I completely understand the reasons for this, banks are protecting themselves from fraud, but I'm wondering if there's a bank which doesn't do this so readily. I've heard Chase and Monzo are worse. Any suggestions? I can't help feeling disgruntled at not being able to do what I want with my own money. How on Earth do very rich people manage if they can only move small amounts around without the third degree? Do you think Sunak has this problem?

TheBanker

I think all banks do it, and they'll do it more in the future. Politicians and regulators are pushing for banks to take on the liability for any scam payments their customers willingly make. They also have greater obligations than previously under anti-Money Laundering rules. 

As for Sunak, I doubt he's going into the Starling app to transfer his money to Chip. 

Band7

All banks will make random checks, and we should expect these to increase as more stringent regulations will be put on firms.

gsmh

TheBanker said:

I think all banks do it, and they'll do it more in the future. Politicians and regulators are pushing for banks to take on the liability for any scam payments their customers willingly make. They also have greater obligations than previously under anti-Money Laundering rules. 

As for Sunak, I doubt he's going into the Starling app to transfer his money to Chip. 

I wasn't for one minute suggesting Sunak would be using Starling or Chip, just wondering if people with his sort of wealth would be exempt from these checks, whichever bank they were with.

wmb194

Might be luck, might be related to size and frequency e.g., I don't do £1 test payments but the last time I had a transfer held up was years and years ago by Lloyds when Tesco Bank introduced its 3% current account and I was making my initial deposit. I've never had any issues with Chase.

Marchitiello

I had terrible experiences with Starling but it was made worst by their terrible customer service, which after they started charging for conversion from/to the EUR account, made me close the account altogether. 

With regards to Chase,  I use it regularly for fairly large transactions and at the beginning I did indeed get the outbound transaction stopped, but what they did well, is that they have a true 24/7 customer service that will discuss it over the phone, escalate it to the relevant team if needed, and release the transaction there and then  (assuming is all above the board and explanations make sense).

flaneurs_lobster

gsmh said:

Any suggestions? I can't help feeling disgruntled at not being able to do what I want with my own money. 

If you want to hold your money in institutions that will have you as a customer then you will have to abide by whatever rules. terms and conditions they impose. 

I don't think that there are metrics that will allow someone to determine which institutions have the loosest and most lax security procedures that allow anyone to withdraw any amount at any time without impediment.

You can, of course, withdraw all your own money, hold it as cash and stuff it under the proverbial mattress. This will allow you do whatever you want with your own money at any time.

gsmh

I was just wondering if there are any banks which are less likely to hold on to your money once you've made a transfer. I know what's going on and why they're doing it, but there must be some institutions which are more stringent than others. It's not about being 'lax' and having the 'loosest' security or allowing anybody to withdraw any amount without impediment. That's just silly and an emotive use of words to support what the banks are doing. It was a genuine question and genuine answers are most welcome.

TheBanker

gsmh said:

TheBanker said:

I think all banks do it, and they'll do it more in the future. Politicians and regulators are pushing for banks to take on the liability for any scam payments their customers willingly make. They also have greater obligations than previously under anti-Money Laundering rules. 

As for Sunak, I doubt he's going into the Starling app to transfer his money to Chip. 

I wasn't for one minute suggesting Sunak would be using Starling or Chip, just wondering if people with his sort of wealth would be exempt from these checks, whichever bank they were with.

They tend to have people to deal with that kind of thing for them, and they'll have a dedicated relationship team at whichever Private Bank they hold their main account with. They are also probably less concerned about transactions taking a bit of time to complete. 

Bridlington1

gsmh said:

I was just wondering if there are any banks which are less likely to hold on to your money once you've made a transfer. I know what's going on and why they're doing it, but there must be some institutions which are more stringent than others. It's not about being 'lax' and having the 'loosest' security or allowing anybody to withdraw any amount without impediment. That's just silly and an emotive use of words to support what the banks are doing. It was a genuine question and genuine answers are most welcome.

They all have varying fraud prevention measures which are forever evolving based on the latest scams and fraudulent behaviours so it's difficult to answer that question. They all hold up payments and they won't tell you their algorithms for fear of the fraudsters finding them out and working out ways to circumvent them.

I have had accounts frozen before. HSBC for 23 days in February 2022 and Virgin for 5 days about 2 weeks later. If I had had all of my accounts linked to HSBC it would've been a real pain. Luckily I didn't have many accounts linked to them so could "isolate" the account and let the rest of my banking affairs run as normal. 

The way I see it your best bet is to ensure that you have several different nominated accounts (preferably with different banking groups) for your various accounts. In my case I have most linked to Ulster, Nationwide, Metro, Virgin and Santander with some linked to HSBC for accounts that let you have multiple nominated accounts and a couple of my DD accounts to Natwest and RBS. I try to get it so that my main 5 accounts have roughly the same number of accounts linked to them.

This way although I'm not reducing my chances of getting a payment held up, I am reducing the impact of a delayed payment since I still have other accounts to fall back on and if one or even 2 current accounts gets frozen, I can still access most of my money if needed.

gsmh

I called Starling who grilled me on the transaction, asked a couple of questions, then put me on hold for 5 minutes and did that two or three times. Eventually the transaction was processed. At least I got to talk to someone within a few minutes (on a Saturday afternoon too) who could actually do something.