Missing money following bank transfer between my own accounts from different banks !!

MKDad

Like most I have a selection of bank accounts for different things, recently I completed a transfer of £2000 from my Santander account to my Natwest account, however despite confirmation from Santander and supply of reference number no funds have been received in my Natwest account.
Accounts are long standing and I have completed transfers previously and since between these accounts all with expected success. This one transaction seems to have failed.

I have spoken to Santander who say money has been sent as proven by supply of reference number, Natwest are unwilling to help as they do not acknowledge the transaction.
Who is responsible to trace and resolve as surly it cant be me  ??

MKDad

To add a little more information, the rouge transaction was made last Friday so that's 5 days ago and 3 working days ago. Transfers made between same 2 accounts on Monday went through without any issues as per previous transfers.

To confirm these are my own 2 accounts and have had these for some years and transfer between the accounts on a regular basis with values both below and above that of the rouge transaction.

Mark_d

I would wait until at least 5 working days have elapsed before escalating the matter with Natwest

eskbanker

MKDad said:

...the rouge transaction...

Did it leave you in the red?

tacpot12

If the reference number from Santander is a Faster Payments Reference Number (see below), then the payment should have arrived within 2 hours, and your money should be credited to your account that day. I would expect NatWest to investigate 24 hours after the payment was sent. 

The format for a Faster Payment transaction reference number is YYYYMMDDHHMISSsss2nnnnnnnn, where each component is:

• YYYY: Year
• MM: Month
• DD: Date
• HH: Hour of day in 24 hour format
• MI: Minute
• SS: Second
• sss: Millisecond
• 2: Indicator for Online processing
• nnnnnnnn: 8-digit random serial number

Just because you have made the payments before it doesn't mean nothing has changed, either at Santander orr NatWest. Banks often have to make changes to their software, and the changes are not always apparent to customers. The cause could be a change in a system at either bank. The provision of a Faster Payment reference number by Santander does seem to point to the issue being more at the NatWest end. 

Have you sent a payment since the missing one? I think I would send a small payment of a random amount to check whether the problem is ongoing, is fixed, or is related to the large size of the payment. £2000 is not a large payment, but combined with other cash flows into and out of your NatWest account might have triggered some anti-money laundering checks. if the small payment arrives it might be because the problem is fixed or that it is too small to trigger further checking. 

Olinda99

yes a very good idea - send 89p and see what happens

xylophone

Have you sent a payment since the missing one? 

The OP states

I have completed transfers previously and since between these accounts all with expected success. This one transaction seems to have failed.

and

To add a little more information, the rouge transaction was made last Friday so that's 5 days ago and 3 working days ago. Transfers made between same 2 accounts on Monday went through without any issues as per previous transfers.

so that the apparent failure of the transfer in question seems very strange.

The OP does mention having a number of bank accounts. I wonder could the £2000 have been sent to one of the others? That is to say, 

he  intended to send it to Natwest but used one of his "previous recipients" in error?

phillw

Faster payments need to go through by the end of the next business day.

Normally I would expect Santander to be lying. If they suspect fraud then the payment will not go through and they have to lie through their teeth about it so they don't tip you off.

Your only option is to phone Santander, say "I want to make a complaint". Explain the situation, tell them what NatWest said. You can ask to talk to the security team in case the transaction has been held up.

If this doesn't help, then go to NatWest, say "I want to make a complaint" and tell them what Santander said.

Don't get angry, tell them you are disappointed in the banks training and systems.

molerat

xylophone said:

The OP does mention having a number of bank accounts. I wonder could the £2000 have been sent to one of the others? That is to say, 

he  intended to send it to Natwest but used one of his "previous recipients" in error?

The Santander account will show the reference number of the payee it was sent to, "Bill payment via faster payments to XXXX reference YYY, mandate No 0123", so will point to the particular payee account in their personal list so that point is easily checked.