Has the processing time for electronic payments been increased?

| While making a bill payment via Abbey National E-banking I noticed that you | are now to "Allow 4 working days for receipt of payment" | | I could have sworn that this used to be 3 working days. Can anyone confirm | this and whether the 4 working days processing time is the norm with other | banks? | | 4 working days to process an electronic payment seems a touch excessive | IMHO. |

It's always been four for as long as I can remember - my reckoning is that it takes three days for it to be transferred to the other company thru' the clearing system and then one working day for the receiving company to process is against your account.

ISTR that banks will be introducing same day clearance sometime in the not too distant future. However, they reckon it will make banking more expensive as they won't have their hands on our money any longer than is necessary.

Not if you realise that the banks employ teams of trainee clerks whose qualifications failed to get them into hairdressing college, and whose job it is to print out the electronic instructions onto paper and then pass them into the existing 3 day mechanism which deals with non-electronic payment instructions.

In article , Trust No One® writes

Touch excessive!!! .Bloody legalised robbery thats what!....

"At least three working days" according to my bank.

"At least" 3 days is no better that 4 days?

We pay Insight every time by BACS - it is in their account on day three. However they don't reconcile their bank statements every day - just very 6-7 working days. They are always chasing for payments already received.

The key item is when the receiver applies that payment to your account.