New speedy system for bank transfers launched; account to account in under 2 hours

jj_bn

Set up an online transfer yesterday from RBS to Lloyds account to come out today (same day as salary went in). Called RBS first to find out which transaction would hit the account first (the salary or the transfer out, to ensure i would not be charged in case they processed the transfer prior to the salary hitting the account! RBS did not know! and could not confirm i would not be charged, but instructed me to call back this morning, to check what happend. anyway. Anyway, all good. She confirmed that if i make the same transaction in future, it would be fine and no charges would be incurred and gave me her name to validate it.

Graham1

For A&L: last week the sort code checker said A&L sort codes could accept faster payments and their customer service were saying accounts would be able to accept (but not send) faster payments from the first day. However this week the sort code checker says they can't, and their customer service are now saying it will be the end of June before A&L customer sort codes are added to the system (again for receive only).

People are best advised to stick to the high street 4 (Barclays, Natwest, HSBC, Lloyds) if they want this to work any time soon.

DaveO

I'd be surprised to see any banks charge for this. The whole idea is to replace the 3 day clearing cycle which was based on something called BACS, with the Faster Payments system. The banks were told to do this by the govt. so I don't think a chargeable service replacing a free one is what the govt. had in mind.

The fact CHAP's payments which are also same day payments cost £30 is not relevant because they are different services. CHAP's has very high limits to allow things like mortgage funds to be transferred same day whereas BACS had a £10K limit.

So you could only send £10k via BACS anyway so the £10K limit is just the same for Faster Payments.

Faster Payments has a number of "members" which is 13 banks I think. These are directly connected and eventually will send and receive payments.

Small banks, building society's and even some large companies such as utilities will be able to join the scheme as an Agency. Agencies won't be directly connected which means they will use the services of one of the member banks to access the service. That means they will use one of the members as a gateway to the Faster Payments system.

Agency support is part of a later phase so people with accounts at smaller institutions will eventually get the service in due course. There is no way any bank will be left out of this because for one thing it's a govt. directive but if they didn't join they would lose customers very quickly.

Mikeyorks

jimbo_the_jetset wrote: »

Well I didn't get my pay early even though the transfer from Barclays left yesterday to my A&L account.

Nor will you get it earlier ... if it's paid by BACS Direct Credit. That and DDs are not involved with Faster Payments because there's no 'float' involved. As most employers specify a 'pay date' ..... why should they get it there earlier?

whu

lloyds will not use the faster service for transfers out until 6 june but you can transfer in immediately

anandp

Mikeyorks wrote: »

Nor will you get it earlier ... if it's paid by BACS Direct Credit. That and DDs are not involved with Faster Payments because there's no 'float' involved. As most employers specify a 'pay date' ..... why should they get it there earlier?

There are effectively 3 different payment systems now - BACS, CHAPS and Faster Payments (FP).

FP should replace both the other two in time, however, as it stands currently, FP's are not guaranteed unlike CHAPS so there will be occasions where CHAPS needs to be used (such as when drawing down a mortgage).

The banks are doing a staged rollout and they all seem to have their own timings too - i.e. Barclays is only allowing £1-5 payments for week 1, then raising the bar. HSBC is allowing only £20 for week 1, then the max. £10k from week 2.

Another crucial difference is, esp. with HSBC, that Standing Orders (which go through the BACS system), will not go through FP automatically until Q2 next year!! So only one-off payments, or recurring (pre-scheduled but not standing orders) payments will go through FP.

Its all just very confusing - I don't think we'll see the full benefit from this until 2009 when 95% of payments under £10k start going through and all this phasing in is complete.

greyteam1959

How are all the poor old banks going to make any money now they cant hold onto your money for 3 or 4 days ?????????????
I am sure they will have a little scheme coming along somewhere !!!

Henwen

I didn't realise this was so close to happening so was thrilled to read this.

Does anyone know when the foreign banks like Kaupthing and Firstsave will sign up? I'm thinking that savings account "surfing" will be much easier from now on....

Didn't know BACS had a £10,000 limit - is this right?

saad_awal

Cloudane wrote: »

Tried it last night

HSBC->Natwest - done in the time it took to figure out it's necessary to log out of the Natwest system and back in again to refresh it.

Natwest->HSBC - instant. Literally, pound sent, refreshed about 2 seconds later and it was there. Very good!

Hope A&L accept it soon, as I've just kicked off the process of transferring to them from HSBC so it'll make the process that little bit easier.

How much did you transfer?

I tried it and it didnt work. Called HSBC, they said there is a limit of £20 until the end of June after which it will be £10k.

saad_awal

Henwen wrote: »

I didn't realise this was so close to happening so was thrilled to read this.

Does anyone know when the foreign banks like Kaupthing and Firstsave will sign up? I'm thinking that savings account "surfing" will be much easier from now on....

Of course.. *hint hint* :beer: