The Lemon Fool

Can anyone explain how when I transfer money from my first direct account to my starting account it happens immediately (and certainly less than one minute) but when I transfer money from the same FD account to my halifax mortgage account it takes three days?

Aside from the cynical suggestion that its a way of Halifax getting use/interest/whatever on the money I've transferred and extra interest on my mortgage account?

Ian

Halifax is a non-participent of FP?

http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/halifax

Current participant: No

http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/direct ... rticipants

According to Halifax they do use Faster Payments:
https://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/ ... ent-types/

Two possibilities...
1. Your payment to Halifax was greater than the £25000 limit for Faster Payments (I.e. if this was a one-off lump sum into the account).
2. If Halifax do not accept Faster Payments into mortgage accounts (possible by differentiating by sortcode). Check the sortcode on the Faster Payments site:
http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/consum ... de-checker

If not the former, I would complain....

<pedant>
For most customer-initiated transfers between accounts at different banks, BACS was superseded by FPS (Faster Payments Service) from 2008. Direct debits are, I believe, still processed by BACS and take three days to clear.
Since FPS transactions are more open to fraud, banks impose a daily £limit.
</pedant>

Is the limit £25,000? I thought it was much higher than that and I've recently made a number of payments (from First Direct) which arrived at the recipient bank within minutes.

And payments from an HSBC business account, also for much larger amounts than £25,000, also arrived within minutes.

Laughton wrote:Is the limit £25,000? I thought it was much higher than that and I've recently made a number of payments (from First Direct) which arrived at the recipient bank within minutes.

And payments from an HSBC business account, also for much larger amounts than £25,000, also arrived within minutes.

I think that different banks have different limits. But thinking again that is probably for outgoing payments. I know my Starling account is limited to £20,000 per day.

didds wrote:Can anyone explain how when I transfer money from my first direct account to my starting account it happens immediately (and certainly less than one minute) but when I transfer money from the same FD account to my halifax mortgage account it takes three days?

Aside from the cynical suggestion that its a way of Halifax getting use/interest/whatever on the money I've transferred and extra interest on my mortgage account?

Ian

An attempt to FP into money into a mortgage account is always likely to take longer than FP into a "normal" account.

An "internal transfer" between accounts is more likely to be quicker than BACS.

After eliminating delays due to sending and receiving limits (test: How long does a £1000 transfer take?)

I would suggest opening an instant/online savings account with Halifax and do a trial transfer via that account and see if it happens more quickly.

For the record, mortgage lump sums paid into NatWest Mortgages take days to process regardless of whether they come from a NatWest of non-NatWest account. I get the impression that they get printed out from one system, and stuck in a tray for someone to type into the next...

I have the same issue with Halifax and TSB credit cards. Both banks accept FP but if I pay the respective credit card from the current account they both take three days to appear.

Maroochydore wrote:I have the same issue with Halifax and TSB credit cards. Both banks accept FP but if I pay the respective credit card from the current account they both take three days to appear.

When I had a Halifax mortgage I had a matching current account, I now use faster payment to the current account and then an internal transfer to move money to card or savings accounts. All happens within minutes.

Laughton wrote:Is the limit £25,000? I thought it was much higher than that and I've recently made a number of payments (from First Direct) which arrived at the recipient bank within minutes.

And payments from an HSBC business account, also for much larger amounts than £25,000, also arrived within minutes.

The limit within the FP system is pretty high @ £250K, each individual bank makes its own decisions about how much it allows per transaction/day.
My personal account high street bank has a £20K day limit, so I normally use scheduled payments for any large transactions over that that are non urgent.
I did an £80K transfer to a BS in branch the other week via the CA debit card, but that took a while to clear, even though it showed in the online account immediately.

http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/how-much-can-i-send-0

How much can I send?
It is now possible to send an individual payment of up to £250,000 using the Faster Payments Service. Further limits apply, depending on who you bank with and the type of account you have.

The house sale I completed a while back was all done via CHAPS, FP still isn't of any real use there (yet) even though I did ask my conveyancing solicitor to use if possible to save on the CHAPS fees...