When to transfer money?

WhoisDannie

My OAP pension is paid into a current account every 4 weeks on a Friday and I will immediately be transferring it out to another account via standing order leaving a balance of £0 in the account so my balance for the 4 weeks will be £0.

Should I set up the standing order for the same day the pension is paid into my account assuming that the government will never pay my pension later than the due date?

bgr62

Yes. Generally, SO and DD's go out after income due in is received.

Ayr_Rage

With electronic payments there is always a chance of it being late due to IT issues at either end.

Doing a manual payment via an app or online once you know the funds are there is not difficult.

boingy

If you can afford it then set the standing order for about 5 days later. That allows for IT glitches, bank holidays and zombie apocalypses. In the case of the latter get yourself a baseball bat and stock up with plenty of tea bags and dried goods.

blue.peter

WhoisDannie said:

My OAP pension is paid into a current account every 4 weeks on a Friday and I will immediately be transferring it out to another account via standing order leaving a balance of £0 in the account so my balance for the 4 weeks will be £0.

Should I set up the standing order for the same day the pension is paid into my account assuming that the government will never pay my pension later than the due date?

There is a minor risk, and it depends on the relative timing of the standing order processing and the receipt of your state pension.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that your bank processes standing orders at 05.00, but your state pension doesn't arrive until 06.00. In this case, there isn't enough money to pay the standing order, and so it'll fail.

If this occurs, most (all?) banks will make a second attempt at processing the standing order in the afternoon. As long as your state pension has arrived by the time that this happens - and it probably will - the standing order will then be paid. That'll be fine in practice. However, you might find that you get text messages or similar telling you that the payment has failed, and that you must ensure that the money needed to fund it is received in your bank account by 14.30 (or whatever).

So, provided that you don't mind:

• possibly getting mildly worrying messages from your bank; or
• possible failure of the standing order because your state pension hasn't arrived in time,

you should be OK.

blue.peter

bgr62 said:

Yes. Generally, SO and DD's go out after income due in is received.

Doesn't always happen. I've had the occasional minor timing problem.

eskbanker

WhoisDannie said:

My OAP pension is paid into a current account every 4 weeks on a Friday and I will immediately be transferring it out to another account via standing order leaving a balance of £0 in the account so my balance for the 4 weeks will be £0.

Should I set up the standing order for the same day the pension is paid into my account assuming that the government will never pay my pension later than the due date?

Looking at this from a different angle, if this current account is unused, can't you have your pension paid into the current account you do use instead, or is this overseas perhaps?

badger09

I agree with @blue.peter on this. It depends on the bank:building society involved. 

I have a SO to pay in over £1k to my Nationwide FlexDirect account and another SO to pay out £250 on 1st of every month. I check that the money has arrived, usually before 08.00 but every month I get a message around 11.30 to say there isn’t enough to pay the £250. 

Presumably Nationwide try to pay out SOs very early. It’s a minor irritation but if you want to avoid it, set the outward SO to the following day. 

My State pension is also paid on a Friday, but if that is a Bank Holiday, it’s paid earlier rather than later.