Bank International Payments

[RhBBob]

On my Bank's website under International Payments, it proudly states that payments are made the same working day.

 

My payment to a supplier in Germany was debited on 14th March 2016.

 

It will arrive in 12 working days time, i.e. 5th April 2016.

 

Why ?

[Metr0Land]

Is the same day guarantee just for person-to-person transactions, as opposed to business ones?

[RhBBob]

Is the same day guarantee just for person-to-person transactions, as opposed to business ones?

 

Yes, I do wonder if that is the reason.  The response phone call to my complaint said that sometimes these will be made 'within a week' i.e. by the end of today, rather than the next working day. I responded with a request that they alter the website to reflect this possibility.  Someone will ring again tomorrow.

 

 To my total embarrassment I worked for the bank for some 28 years   Needless to say, I kept quiet about that 

[Joseph_Pestell]

On my Bank's website under International Payments, it proudly states that payments are made the same working day.

 

My payment to a supplier in Germany was debited on 14th March 2016.

 

It will arrive in 12 working days time, i.e. 5th April 2016.

 

Why ?

Because it makes them lots of money to hold onto yours.

 

We have just been informed that transactions between different accounts at Lloyds will now take days where they used to be same day. There can not be any valid reason for that.

 

Meantime, the Swedes moved years ago to a system where all interbank payments are made within hours.

 

Edit to add: Sometimes we only get any satisfaction from the bank because SWMBO worked there for a few years and knows the system a bit. No chance for ordinary punters.

[Horsetan]

Because it makes them lots of money to hold onto yours.

 

We have just been informed that transactions between different accounts at Lloyds will now take days where they used to be same day. There can not be any valid reason for that.

 

...apart from making money for themselves, as you said.

[Allegheny1600]

What annoys me about international banking is that quite clearly, German banks happily deal with IBAN payments easily and cheaply but if I want to send payment (to an eBay seller in Germany for example), my UK bank charges me about £15 for the privilege and that's if I do the work (online) myself!

I can go into the branch and be charged £25 instead, of course!

IMHO, this is ridiculous and is quite counter the EU's "Free movement of monies and goods".

Cheers,

John

[Horsetan]

... this is ridiculous and is quite counter the EU's "Free movement of monies and goods".

 

After June 25th, you may not have to worry about this. 

[robert17649]

or it may get a lot worse

[RhBBob]

or it may get a lot worse

 

Agreed, but if this supplier had taken PayPal or Visa then the goods would have been with me a few days ago !

 

After June, the Banks may miss out on such transfers, but then again, will they care ?  Probably not.  The most recent advertising from my former employer talks about assistance at times of bereavement; perhaps the old Executor and Trustee department might return .....to be branded a 'new' service, no doubt.

[brigo]

I remember good old Eurocheques, which were cheap and simple to use and widely accepted in Germany, ideal for mag subscriptions etc.

Then my bank decided to stop them, citing that France and Sweden widely accepted Visa cards. Not interested in those countries, what about all the other countries in Europe that didn't.

Obviously not making enough money on them.

 

After June 23rd if we leave, I bet the banks will find a way to charge us even more to send money abroad.

 

Brian

[brianusa]

Pay Pal?

 

Brian.

[doctor quinn]

Western union offer bank transfer to some countries. I used it to Denmark, cost £2.90 and arrived in 2 days I suspect that you need to go to a bureau de change to use it.

[Phil Bullock]

Can recommend Transferwise - used them when my son was at Uni in Estonia, still do as he's still out there

 

https://transferwise.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=UK

 

Quick and cheap

 

Phil

[rockershovel]

I did a transfer using IBAN a few months ago, to Germany, and it was received the same day. It varies considerably between banks, though.

 

FWIW, I hope people aren't expecting to pass suddenly into the broad, sunlit uplands on or about 25th June. My bookie reckons 4/11 for IN and 2/1 for OUT. For no apparent reason, 88% of bets are on OUT, which makes no sense to me given the odds. Were I a betting man, which Heaven forfend, I certainly wouldn't bet against the odds. Bookies, unlike politicians, put their money where their mouths are.

 

The only rational vote I can see, is "none of the above", which isn't an option; my best guess is that lack of any credible alternative will prove crucial.

[Bernard Lamb]

Never come across this problem.

An account held in euros in a Eurozone country is rather useful.

With a card to withdraw cash or pay any body any where the system works very well.

That probably gives a clue as to which way I will vote in June.

Bernard

[Joseph_Pestell]

Western union offer bank transfer to some countries. I used it to Denmark, cost £2.90 and arrived in 2 days I suspect that you need to go to a bureau de change to use it.

 

Our local branch of WH Smith has a Western Union facility. No idea how it works and I have never seen anyone use it.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Never come across this problem.

An account held in euros in a Eurozone country is rather useful.

With a card to withdraw cash or pay any body any where the system works very well.

That probably gives a clue as to which way I will vote in June.

Bernard

 

Can I guess that the country is not France? We had money in an account to pay builders. But, withdraw cash? "You must be joking. We need weeks of notice".

 

We don't do politics on RMWeb so the referendum is dangerous ground. It should be a no-brainer for me with two properties abroad, a long time lived there, and studied there (BA European Business Administration), member of a political party that is for "remain", etc. And yet.......

[Horsetan]

.....Western Union facility. No idea how it works and I have never seen anyone use it.

Popular with fraudsters, apparently.

[Allegheny1600]

Western Union?

Blimey, don't go there! After all the horror stories about them, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I did a transfer using IBAN a few months ago, to Germany, and it was received the same day. It varies considerably between banks, though.

 

FWIW, I hope people aren't expecting to pass suddenly into the broad, sunlit uplands on or about 25th June. My bookie reckons 4/11 for IN and 2/1 for OUT. For no apparent reason, 88% of bets are on OUT, which makes no sense to me given the odds. Were I a betting man, which Heaven forfend, I certainly wouldn't bet against the odds. Bookies, unlike politicians, put their money where their mouths are.

 

The only rational vote I can see, is "none of the above", which isn't an option; my best guess is that lack of any credible alternative will prove crucial.

You have this all the wrong way round. The odds follow the money. So while there may be more bets on Leave, the best on Remain must be for much higher sums. I reckon 2/1 on Leave is worth a punt, representing very good value.

[Nearholmer]

I had similar experience trying to IBAN money to a supplier in Germany.

 

All the more embarrassing and frustrating, because, with touching faith in human nature, said supplier had sent the goods on an "approval or return" basis, to me, a chap that they didn't know from Adam, and probably couldn't have pursued if I'd simply pretended the stuff never arrived. German suppliers seem a lot less into PayPal and "card over the phone" than UK suppliers.

 

K

[YesTor]

A strong second vote here for TransferWise.  I now use this for all business transfers.  The fees are tiny (as little as £1), and quite often my European recipients will email later the same day in genuine surprise that the funds are already in their accounts, only hours after initiating the transfer.  

 

https://transferwise.com 

[rockershovel]

You have this all the wrong way round. The odds follow the money. So while there may be more bets on Leave, the best on Remain must be for much higher sums. I reckon 2/1 on Leave is worth a punt, representing very good value.

Errmmm... I don't have anything, any way round. I am simply offering the observation that despite the bookies odds indicating that, as you say, the serious money is on IN (along with the polls, which have never shown an OUT majority at any time) a lot of people appear to think that 2/1 on OUT represents "good value".

 

I wouldn't dispute that if we were considering a horse or dog racing meeting, where there is a high cash flow, large numbers of bets on a range of possible outcomes and a lot of variables, then your analysis is essentially correct and I might well have a punt, but this is not the case here.

 

Consider instead the Scottish Referendum. For all the excitement in certain quarters, and the claims of various persons or groups having materially influenced the outcome, the bookies correctly predicted that the outcome would be 60% or less to stay, with a margin between 5 and 10%, and that didn't greatly change throughout the campaign.

 

So, my point remains; that significant numbers of people are betting in a fashion which indicates that they don't understand the situation.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Errmmm... I don't have anything, any way round. I am simply offering the observation that despite the bookies odds indicating that, as you say, the serious money is on IN (along with the polls, which have never shown an OUT majority at any time) a lot of people appear to think that 2/1 on OUT represents "good value".

 

I wouldn't dispute that if we were considering a horse or dog racing meeting, where there is a high cash flow, large numbers of bets on a range of possible outcomes and a lot of variables, then your analysis is essentially correct and I might well have a punt, but this is not the case here.

 

Consider instead the Scottish Referendum. For all the excitement in certain quarters, and the claims of various persons or groups having materially influenced the outcome, the bookies correctly predicted that the outcome would be 60% or less to stay, with a margin between 5 and 10%, and that didn't greatly change throughout the campaign.

 

So, my point remains; that significant numbers of people are betting in a fashion which indicates that they don't understand the situation.

 

Bookies that predict outcomes don't last long. Bookmaking is all about where the money is going. But I think we both agree on that.

 

I'm not sure that a comparison between the Scottish referendum and the EU referendum works, mainly because I don't think that we will see anything like the same turnout. But also the issues and outcomes are much less certain and, talking to friends and neighbours, I find that there are so many "don't knows". So far the campaign has been extraordinarily lacklustre from both camps with many issues not being discussed. For instance, there has been discussion about the imposition of VAT on women's sanitary products but no mention at all of the fact that leaving would enable us to ditch VAT altogether.

 

We have gone off-topic but I do think that ease of money transfers is another issue that people need to consider in the referendum context although as the UK is clearly not going to join the Eurozone, it makes only a limited difference.

[Nearholmer]

" So far the campaign has been extraordinarily lacklustre from both camps with many issues not being discussed. "

 

Understatement of the Century, methinks.

 

I've been listening fairly carefully, and made the effort to listen to something on R4, where each side was given the opportunity to state their case, with no interruption from the other, and a "no dissing" rule enforced. Neither side put a cogent argument, just a series of "sound bite assertions" that added up to not a great deal.

 

And, there is a very obvious "third way",which both sides appear to have sworn never to mention.

 

Personally, I have made up my mind, but not on the basis of the campaigns, because even the one supporting the view that I hold wouldn't convince me, if I didn't already hold that view (if that makes sense!).

 

K

 

PS: DM may wish to note that debit cards are very common in the UK too.