Refund on Debit card

MouldyOldDough

Why does it always take 3 days to get a refund on a card payment - but paying is instant ?

DullGreyGuy

Paying isnt instant... it may show leaving your account fairly quickly but that doesnt mean its arrived in the merchant's account straight away.

The payment network is based on older mechanisms in the same way that BACS takes 3 days to go from end to end - its been broadly replaced by FasterPay 

MouldyOldDough

DullGreyGuy said:

Paying isnt instant... it may show leaving your account fairly quickly but that doesnt mean its arrived in the merchant's account straight away.

The payment network is based on older mechanisms in the same way that BACS takes 3 days to go from end to end - its been broadly replaced by FasterPay 

OK so why can't fasterpay work in the consumers favour as well -  ie to get fast/instant refunds ?

born_again

MouldyOldDough said:

Why does it always take 3 days to get a refund on a card payment - but paying is instant ?

Card payments are not instant. Approval for a debit is, but is never fully taken straight away. 
Credits do not need authorisation. So take the same timeframe as debits in the end.

If you want it to work in the same way as faster payments, then you will have card debits hitting straight away, rather than the normal day or two..
Card payment systems are totally different in the background to faster payments. 

eskbanker

MouldyOldDough said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Paying isnt instant... it may show leaving your account fairly quickly but that doesnt mean its arrived in the merchant's account straight away.

The payment network is based on older mechanisms in the same way that BACS takes 3 days to go from end to end - its been broadly replaced by FasterPay 

OK so why can't fasterpay work in the consumers favour as well -  ie to get fast/instant refunds ?

It can, but the speed of refunds will generally be within the control of the merchant, so retailers will naturally often choose to be slower to lose money than to gain it, while blaming the banks....

Paul_01

MouldyOldDough said:

Why does it always take 3 days to get a refund on a card payment - but paying is instant ?

It doesn't always take 3 days. I have had a number of 'refunds' to my debit card that were instant.

MouldyOldDough

Paul_01 said:

MouldyOldDough said:

Why does it always take 3 days to get a refund on a card payment - but paying is instant ?

It doesn't always take 3 days. I have had a number of 'refunds' to my debit card that were instant.

Laptopsdirect take 5 days

molerat

MouldyOldDough said:

Paul_01 said:

MouldyOldDough said:

Why does it always take 3 days to get a refund on a card payment - but paying is instant ?

It doesn't always take 3 days. I have had a number of 'refunds' to my debit card that were instant.

Laptopsdirect take 5 days

Two different things in play here, nothing can happen until a company actually inputs a refund into the system and some are very slow to do that.  Payments are automatically taken but refunds are often manual and require authorisation within the company.