Direct Debits at Weekends and BH

nnorthnants

I support families ssorting debts and one frequent issue is DD payments being taken 4/5 days after payment date. Especially a problem at BH weekends and Chrstmas/New Year. Energy bills may be 30/40% of Benefit payments so it's just to difficult to leave the money in the Bank for 4/5 days.

Why don't suppliers take DD's at weekends etc. or just accept standing orders on the proper day?

Any ideas welcome - and not about self-discipline as the families I support use all that up just surviving.
Thanks

Brie

It's more likely to do with the banks rather than the actually company with the DD.  I know my bank doesn't do DDs on the weekend.  So if my energy provider requests a payment for 12 Aug as the 12th is my normal DD day my bank won't pay it because that's a Saturday.  So it will be paid on the 14th being the next banking day.  It's obviously worse over Christmas when there's a few "down" days for the banks at that time and even worse if the 25th is a Monday as there's going to be 4 days without standard banking happening.  I don't think it's the same for all banks which is why it gets confusing and then there's also the issue of taking things a day early on the Friday though that's more likely for income rather than expenditure.  

I've just being doing my banking and I can't even request an ad hoc payment for my CC to be paid on the day I want if that happens to be on the weekend.  

eskbanker

nnorthnants said:

it's just to difficult to leave the money in the Bank for 4/5 days

[...]

Any ideas welcome

Many choose to use multiple bank accounts to allow segregation of 'bills' money and 'spending' money, so splitting income into two separate pots may help mitigate the effect you refer to (on the assumption that DD/SO settlement policies aren't going to be changing in the foreseeable future)?

WillPS

nnorthnants said:

I support families ssorting debts and one frequent issue is DD payments being taken 4/5 days after payment date. Especially a problem at BH weekends and Chrstmas/New Year. Energy bills may be 30/40% of Benefit payments so it's just to difficult to leave the money in the Bank for 4/5 days.

Why don't suppliers take DD's at weekends etc. or just accept standing orders on the proper day?

Any ideas welcome - and not about self-discipline as the families I support use all that up just surviving.
Thanks

Use a bank account which supports processing standing orders 7 days a week (Monzo, Starling, Chase, Kroo). Pay by standing order instead.

Pitfalls:

- not direct debit, so amount cannot be changed by supplier (also not eligible for 'Direct Debit only' tariffs, if they are still a thing)

- limited choice of bank (most only deposit on working days)

penners324

A slight twist on WillPS. Both Monzo and Starling let the account owner assign a DD to a pot / space.

So put all DDs onto a bills pot.

Set up a SO from main account to bills ppot when needed (when money goes in).

Ballard

Whilst customers can make faster payments over weekends, these aren’t settlement days for banks. 

The way that direct debits work is that originators (e.g. Sky) instruct their bank to request the money. Their bank then sends a bulk list of all direct debits they’re claiming for to each bank. The paying banks now need to check the details and send the funds to the originators bank (in bulk) and this part can only be done on a working day.