Banks to be able to hold suspicious payments for 4 days

username

Rob5342 said:

The speed you need depends on the amount. You might need a few hundred pounds transferring instantly but you are unlikely to want to transfer tens of thousands without knowing a few weeks beforehand. I don't see why they can't have a notification from the app to do a second approval some time after the first request. 

It would be ineffectual - those that are most prone do get scammed will just simply be coached into accepting the second approval by the scammer.
I do hope this system does have an ability to "learn" what are genuine transfers and not block them, say FPs to credit card companies etc.

Ergates

Shakin_Steve said:

boingy said:

Unfortunately I think we'll see even longer delays and frustrations to many legitimate transfers, made much worse by the near-certainty that banks won't take on any extra staff to deal with the extra workload. It took me just over 1 hour on hold to contact the Co-op about a blocked payment. I had another recently with a different bank where they texted me to ask "Is this payment OK?" and when I texted back "Yes" they immediately phoned me, but it was their automated system that phoned me then played me a recorded message and then put me in a bloody queue! 20 minutes later I hung up, because I had to go out.

If they are not careful we'll all go back to writing cheques to ourselves to transfer money between accounts.

Yes, if every payment that is held up for up to four days has to be looked at by a human, I can't see how they'll manage with the existing staffing levels. So...will suspicious (to the bank) payments end up taking longer than four days, or will they go through after four days without actually being checked due to lack of staff?

It's not going to be applied to all payments, or even the majority - banks process millions of transfers per day, no amount of additional staffing would enable them to check them all manually.  For starters, payments to existing payees are unlikely to be flagged as suspicious.

Shakin_Steve

NorwichMan said:

I don't really understand how we got to a situation where it's considered that the banks are responsible to refund customers who have been tricked into sending money to fraudsters. Surely it is the fraudsters who are responsible first, and perhaps also customers who do not take reasonable care (or who might in some cases be working with the fraudster, claiming to have been tricked and then requesting a refund)?

In cases where the bank has been negligent or at fault in some way then yes they should be liable. But when they ask "are you really sure" and the customer says yes go ahead, then later says "I was tricked," I am not sure why this is considered to be the banks fault.

I guess...just guess...that the thinking from the regulator may be: There are people out there who, for one reason or another, are not very capable of dealing with their finances through online technology. Be it apps, online banking, OTPs, etc. They might even admit that they're not confident about using this tech, but....the banks have given them no choice. They have closed a large amount of physical branches and actively pushed people towards online banking. 🤷🏻‍♂️

DullGreyGuy

friolento said:

Ergates said:

This will be inconvenient, but given banks are now forced to repay fraudulent payments, I can't think of a solid argument against it.  It's an obvious consequence.

They have had to repay for some time. What’s new is that the receiving bank now needs to pay 50% of the refund, and that there is now a limit of £85k, whilst previously it was unlimited.

No real reason for introducing an additional 4-day delay, particularly not in the AI age, where less human interaction and intervention is needed (or so we are told).

But yes, it’s all due to a few feckless people who have still not heard about fraudsters, and due to some fraudsters who think they can outsmart banks.

The other bit thats new @friolento is the fact they have to return up to £85k within 5 days 

There is no regulatory requirement at the moment for them to return push fraud monies but most banks do anyway as they signed up to https://www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk/crm-code/ but even that code has reasons why refunds shouldn't be given.

Shakin_Steve

Ergates said:

Shakin_Steve said:

boingy said:

Unfortunately I think we'll see even longer delays and frustrations to many legitimate transfers, made much worse by the near-certainty that banks won't take on any extra staff to deal with the extra workload. It took me just over 1 hour on hold to contact the Co-op about a blocked payment. I had another recently with a different bank where they texted me to ask "Is this payment OK?" and when I texted back "Yes" they immediately phoned me, but it was their automated system that phoned me then played me a recorded message and then put me in a bloody queue! 20 minutes later I hung up, because I had to go out.

If they are not careful we'll all go back to writing cheques to ourselves to transfer money between accounts.

Yes, if every payment that is held up for up to four days has to be looked at by a human, I can't see how they'll manage with the existing staffing levels. So...will suspicious (to the bank) payments end up taking longer than four days, or will they go through after four days without actually being checked due to lack of staff?

It's not going to be applied to all payments, or even the majority - banks process millions of transfers per day, no amount of additional staffing would enable them to check them all manually.  For starters, payments to existing payees are unlikely to be flagged as suspicious.

That's why I said 'every payment that is held up'.

eskbanker

NorwichMan said:

In cases where the bank has been negligent or at fault in some way then yes they should be liable. But when they ask "are you really sure" and the customer says yes go ahead, then later says "I was tricked," I am not sure why this is considered to be the banks fault.

From another of these threads yesterday:

Banks aren't required to reimburse customers who've been grossly negligent in ignoring warnings, a subject that has been examined in considerable detail as part of the design of this process (and refined from the years it's been used on a voluntary basis):

https://www.psr.org.uk/media/as3a0xan/sr1-consumer-standard-of-caution-guidance-dec-2023.pdf

Although Confirmation of Payee isn't explicitly mentioned there, my expectation would be that if a customer chooses to ignore a CoP name mismatch warning, then the bank isn't obliged to reimburse, as this would be considered a sufficiently specific warning, rather than a generic boilerplate one.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81025860/#Comment_81025860

NorwichMan

Thanks eskbanker, that is an interesting read.

Shakin_Steve

From the PSR website:

• You won’t get your money back if you’re found to have been complicit in the fraud or grossly negligent. Gross negligence is a high bar and this exception does not apply to vulnerable consumers.

https://www.psr.org.uk/information-for-consumers/our-new-app-fraud-reimbursement-protections/

robatwork

Ergates said:

Shakin_Steve said:

boingy said:

Unfortunately I think we'll see even longer delays and frustrations to many legitimate transfers, made much worse by the near-certainty that banks won't take on any extra staff to deal with the extra workload. It took me just over 1 hour on hold to contact the Co-op about a blocked payment. I had another recently with a different bank where they texted me to ask "Is this payment OK?" and when I texted back "Yes" they immediately phoned me, but it was their automated system that phoned me then played me a recorded message and then put me in a bloody queue! 20 minutes later I hung up, because I had to go out.

If they are not careful we'll all go back to writing cheques to ourselves to transfer money between accounts.

Yes, if every payment that is held up for up to four days has to be looked at by a human, I can't see how they'll manage with the existing staffing levels. So...will suspicious (to the bank) payments end up taking longer than four days, or will they go through after four days without actually being checked due to lack of staff?

It's not going to be applied to all payments, or even the majority - banks process millions of transfers per day, no amount of additional staffing would enable them to check them all manually.  For starters, payments to existing payees are unlikely to be flagged as suspicious.

That simply isn't the case.

I had to make multiple large payments recently, to an existing payee to whom I'd made dozens of payments to over the last 15 years. Because these were larger amounts than normal (5x the normal amount), they were all flagged. I had to call Santander every time to get them to release the payment. There was no way to "whitelist" upcoming payments. The algorithm functions on the value and won't be bypassed. 

oldernonethewiser

robatwork said:

Ergates said:

Shakin_Steve said:

boingy said:

Unfortunately I think we'll see even longer delays and frustrations to many legitimate transfers, made much worse by the near-certainty that banks won't take on any extra staff to deal with the extra workload. It took me just over 1 hour on hold to contact the Co-op about a blocked payment. I had another recently with a different bank where they texted me to ask "Is this payment OK?" and when I texted back "Yes" they immediately phoned me, but it was their automated system that phoned me then played me a recorded message and then put me in a bloody queue! 20 minutes later I hung up, because I had to go out.

If they are not careful we'll all go back to writing cheques to ourselves to transfer money between accounts.

Yes, if every payment that is held up for up to four days has to be looked at by a human, I can't see how they'll manage with the existing staffing levels. So...will suspicious (to the bank) payments end up taking longer than four days, or will they go through after four days without actually being checked due to lack of staff?

It's not going to be applied to all payments, or even the majority - banks process millions of transfers per day, no amount of additional staffing would enable them to check them all manually.  For starters, payments to existing payees are unlikely to be flagged as suspicious.

That simply isn't the case.

I had to make multiple large payments recently, to an existing payee to whom I'd made dozens of payments to over the last 15 years. Because these were larger amounts than normal (5x the normal amount), they were all flagged. I had to call Santander every time to get them to release the payment. There was no way to "whitelist" upcoming payments. The algorithm functions on the value and won't be bypassed. 

I had a similar situation with Chase.  When I went through their verification process the first time I told them I would be making a number of such payments over the coming days.  Still had to go through their process each time, last one taking forty minutes. 

Made sure I had a comfy seat and a cup of tea before I phoned them