I've been told that Goldfish now require five working days to process a payment made by my bank (similarly Capital One, MBNA and Amex), while other card companies only require the payment to be made three days before the due date.
Also, the payment "goes into a holding account for two days".
Why are these four companies different?
Robin
payment made by
Different from which other companies? I don't know about the others, but I have a card from MBNA. I am registered online with them and pay my bill by Switch. I fairly regularly pay it one or two days before it is due with no problems whatsoever. Prior to that I used to post them a cheque. I usually posted the cheque first class two days before the due date, again with no problems whatsoever. I think the back of the envelope said allow seven days if paying by post, but I never did. At one point I forgot to pay and phoned the day before it was due to ask if I could pay by Switch. The adviser said no and advised that my quickest option was to pay by cheque. A bank payment would take 3 days to go through, but if they had my cheque in their possession on the due date they would backdate the payment to then. I posted it first class- after six o' clock and it still got there on time. I know they said they had tightened payment times a few months ago, and I no longer send cheques, but the change diesn't seem to have affected me at all.
Neb
payment made by
It's almost always 2 days from sending to receipt. Lets say I BACS the payment on Monday, then I can be pretty sure it will be received on Wednesday. Sometimes I actualy get a next day transit time, perhaps when my bank and the card are both on the same clearing bank.
In message , Adrian Boliston wrote
I my experience it can be 5 _working_ days between pressing the key to send and seeing the money electronically transferred to another account. Recent radio and television programs indicate that I'm not alone in seeing these long transfer times.
I pay all my bills by direct debit - the payment goes out on the due date, so I maximise the interest free period, the interest earned on my money in my bank account, and I never miss a payment. Why do people insist on having to think about when they must press the button on the PC to say 'send payment' or post a cheque (including the cost of the 1st class stamp). Its a bit old fashioned in my view.
Paying your bills by DD is all well and good, but it does mean ensuring that funds are avaliable in your current account on the due date.
I normally sweep my salary into a high interest account on payday, leaving just enough to cover my household bills & mortgage. As my credit card is not normally due till about the 10th of the month, then it would loose me a fair bit of interest (ok only a few quid, but enough to cover the cost of a bottle of wine) if I were to leave funds sitting in my current account till the credit card DD came out, so it's easier just to BACS direct from my savings account to my credit card.
Easy - just open a high interest current account. There are plenty around.
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