Time taken for money transfers

J

jhonan

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Can anyone shed some light on the mechanisms behind automated money transfers between banks (Standing Orders or Direct Transfers)

I have a standing order setup on a TSB account to transfer money to my personal BOI current account for the 28th of each month in order to pay my mortgage.

Now, my mortage came out of my BOI account this morning which is now overdrawn as the money from the TSB hasn't reached it yet. The money left my TSB account this morning.... so where is it?

I called BOI and they said it takes '3 to 5 working days' for the transfer. What I'm trying to find out is where is the money sitting for these 3-5 days?

I understand the EFT process would be something like;

MyTSBAccount -> TSBSuspenseAccount -> BOISuspenseAccount -> MyBOIAccount

How long does it spend in each of the suspense accounts? - Which bank earns the interest on the money for these 3-5 days. And finally and more importantly WHY does it take 3-5 days to process an electronic transaction?

The person in BOI was trying to convince me there were people in each branch who had to manually process each of these transactions! This isn't true, surely?

Apologies if this has been discussed on here before, but I can't find the thread if it has. Feel free to lock/redirect me!
 
All things being equal, the 3 days should apply. I suspect the 3-5 range is to allow themselves a mudguard if someone messes up.

Day 1 - amount debited from TSB account.
Day 2 - exchange of EFT data between (clearing) banks
Day 3 - application of credit at beneficiary bank/account

I agree with all of the 'in this day and age' type criticisms.
 
Thanks for the reply TarfHead.

If the IFSRA needs to put anything at the top of its list, this should be it. I won't say anything else or it'll just turn into a rant!
 
How much money do the banks make on these monies in a year ? Even though each euro is only at their disposal for a day or two, and can only be placed on low overnight interest rates, it must come to a tidy sum each year.
 
jhonan said:
The person in BOI was trying to convince me there were people in each branch who had to manually process each of these transactions! This isn't true, surely?
Click to expand...

I assume the person you were talking to was referrring to exceptions, e.g. if TSB had supplied incorrect BoI account details. In that case, manual intervention would be needed to investigate and correct. That could mean the payment being delayed for an extra day, i.e. 4 days from TSB debit to BoI credit.
 
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