Finally its going to get faster

[Bumfluff]

Finally its going to get faster > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7267406.stm

Good thing and about time though business banking wont get it for a while longer

[AndyGarbs]

About time an all

[VectraMan]

The new, faster, payments service has cost the industry hundreds of millions of pounds to develop and implement, said Sandra Quinn of Apacs.

Why? How can it possibly take 3 days for one computer system to communicate with another?

All they've done is gone to the appropriate screen and changed the "arse about with the customer's money" field from 72 hours to 24 hours. They're making a big deal about this because they're too embaressed to admit just how crap they really are.

[rootsnall]

I don't know about 3 days, I went into an RBS branch a week or so back to pay a cheque in from an account with another bank and was told it could take upto 6 days !!! When I asked how come as it was always 3 days I was told it was a recent change for security reasons

[DimPrawn]

Why? How can it possibly take 3 days for one computer system to communicate with another?

EDS? Indian development team? Public Sector style specifications?

[Ardesco]

They have been able to do this for donkeys of years anyway. I worked in a payment processing centre for Barclays back in 1999 and once you have entered the payments into the system they are done, we had a priority check box that if checked meant that the payment would be in the customers account in the bank we were sending money to the same day.

The only reason they have been holding back on doing this for everyone was because they get to charge you a £25 fee to do this at present. That's a lot of money they are going to loose if nobody need to make priority chaps payments any more......

[Katie]

I don't know about 3 days, I went into an RBS branch a week or so back to pay a cheque in from an account with another bank and was told it could take upto 6 days !!! When I asked how come as it was always 3 days I was told it was a recent change for security reasons

It does only take 3 working days BUT... The staff are told not to say that because if there is a problem with the system or the cheque clearing process you will go back to the branch and say "Well Flossy over there told me..." Also remember that it can take up to 5 working days to clear but it can be return unpaid at anytime! When I worked at a high street bank (I only left in october) we used to say "It can take up to 5 working days to clear but you may be able to withdraw it from the ATM on the third day but remember it can be returned unpaid at anytime. So even if it shows it going in and clearing they can still return it unpaid at anytime therefore debiting your account." Basically covering their own arses!

[AtW]

Why? How can it possibly take 3 days for one computer system to communicate with another?

They used this extra time to gamble with your money on markets, effectively using it as free money - that's why they had no desire to speed up payments unless they were getting extra money.