you know all UK banks now have to make & accept Faster Payments?

[Ponders]

It started on 1st Jan - any banks which won't/can't are excluded from BACS altogether I think (I had a communication from Nationwide stating that I would no longer be able to send payments to Tesco Savings because of it - Tesco Bank very quickly managed to change its systems to accommodate the new rule...)

Anyway - have just found it was because of a new EU regulation: "the European Union has said that all UK banks and building societies must reduce the time it takes to transfer payments between certain accounts"

Fancy that. How come the UK Govt didn't manage to impose this rule years ago?

Not sure what your source is but the UK legislation that triggered this was put in place in February 2009.

I know Faster Payments have been available for a long time. However...

Our main current account is with A&L (now Santander). Before 1st Jan we could, in theory, make up to £1000 of faster payments every day. In practice it might go through or it might not - according to their telephone people, sometimes "the system didn't pick it up" & in that case it would take the standard BACS 3 days.

Now they magically go through every time. Also the limit is now £100,000 I think? & that's universal

I knew anyway that there was a change on 1st Jan, I just didn't know that the EU was responsible. My source for this is an email from Nationwide today:

"Faster Payments
Have you noticed that payments are reaching their destination more quickly than before?
Many Nationwide customers are seeing improvements which have been put in place to speed up payments to and from Nationwide accounts. From 1 January this year the European Union has said that all UK banks and building societies must reduce the time it takes to transfer payments between certain accounts"

that's the difference. I assume Nationwide know what they're talking about?

(Incidentally Nationwide's daily limit before 1st Jan was £10,000, & its Faster Payments were 100% reliable even before this - unlike A&L/Santander - as long as the receiving institution was registered. That has clearly also changed, it is compulsory now when it wasn't before, as in my Tesco Savings example)

I assume Nationwide know what they're talking about?
Oh yes I am sure they do, they certainly seem to have taken care in this PR not to make a causal link between the speeding up of payments and any statement by the EU.

But if you are going to take a statement from their PR out of context and use it to support an argument that we would all be in a pile of poo if it wasn't for the good old EU telling us what to do, don't be surprised when others don't agree with you!

BTW the Nationwide daily limit, in line with many other banks for personal accounts, is still £10,000 as can be seen here. Interestingly Santander have gone to the maximum limit of £100,000.

not to make a causal link?

\link{http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2012/01/eu-overhaul-leads-to-faster-electronic-payments\Most money transfers will go through within one working day from this week, under a new EU directive.}

"under a new EU directive"

I'm not sure what your point is?

Yes, not to make a causal link. It does not say "Many Nationwide customers are seeing improvements..." because "From 1 January this year the European Union has said..."

"under a new EU directive"
There is no new EU directive, I suspect that is an editorial mistake as this comment only appears in the headline.

The relevant EU directive is the Payment Services Directive which was made on 13 November 2007 and last revised in 2009. This directive contained a provision "... all payment orders ... should be subject to a maximum one-day execution time". So the EU has told us to put what is called 'D+1' in place, but what we actually now have in the UK, due to the actions of the Payments Council (a UK body) is same day payment.

My point is the exact opposite of your point: it is that we are not better off because of what the EU directed its members to do, we are better off because of what our own institutions have arranged.

when I asked 2 years ago with Nationwide why the payments where taking so long to get from my bank account to my dd's account they blamed my bank. When I pointed out that my bank could get the other (1st of the months) payment to my other dd's account on the same day it couldn't actually give me an answer....

So the EU has told us to put what is called 'D+1' in place, but what we actually now have in the UK, due to the actions of the Payments Council (a UK body) is same day payment

but I was still experiencing 'D+2/3' with some payments until not very long before 1st January; so the EU intervention has, apparently, improved the performance of the majority of the banks I use, where the Payment Council had made no difference

hence my OP

(or are you saying there absolutely no EU connection with the 1st January deadline & the whole thing was orchestrated in the UK?)

The 1st January 2012 deadline for D+1 was set in the EU directive in 2007 whereas in fact most banks in the UK achieved same day payments well before the deadline.

"most banks in the UK achieved same day payments well before the deadline?

of the 4 I have dealings with, only 2 managed that at all, & only 1 consistently, before 1st Jan 2012

"The 1st January 2012 deadline for D+1 was set in the EU directive in 2007 whereas in fact most banks in the UK achieved same day payments well before the deadline."

Alliance and Leicester/Santander didn't, until they were forced to, neither did Northern Rock. Wow, they needed five years notice, did they?

Paypal is still not compliant.

Lloyds have been doing faster payments for a fair while.

so have RBoS. But I had my savings in an Alliance and Leicester (now Santander) ISA, and a NR ISA, so even though operated online, I was annoyed that they would debit my account on, say, Monday, and the money would not arrive until Wednesday.

Santander are such an awful bank that I transferred my account. I believe many other customers have done the same.

I have Lloyds accounts, but as I live in Belgium, also an ING one. It's been real time banking here for years - I go to the supermarket and use my debit card and it shows fairly instantly on the online banking....same with transfers and payments - you hit the button, it's there.

Have the people with Alliance & Leicester accounts which have now changed over to Santander noticed that their online banking has slowed down? When my account was A&L I would spend money in the supermarket, check online when I got home and it showed up with Santander it can take a couple of days, and also nowadays cheques take exactly seven days to clear. In the old A&L days if you were lucky they would credit to your account after three working days, now it's exactly seven days after you paid the cheque in. I hate Santander, can anybody recommend another current account which I can use overseas without costing too much?

When you say use overseas what do you mean? I live in Belgium and use Lloyds in the Uk and ING in Belgium. If I want to get cash from the UK account I use the ATM here and get euros. Can't do that vice versa with the Belgian card though. I use my UK debit card here too if I want to pay for something from that account.

Do Lloyds charge you every time you use it though scary? Santander have really hoiked up the charges every time I use my debit card to pay in shops. It used to be free when I was with A&L and now it's about £1.10 a payment.

Alicia I'm not sure if they still do, but nationwide did a credit card which was free to use abroad. When I worked in a bank a lot of my customers who spent a large amount of time abroad would use this for all purchases, then pay it off in full using their online banking, thereby avoiding charges/interest.

I only use the Uk card for largish purchases here, and even getting 600 euros worth of cash is about £5 in charges, so a couple of quid for if I go and buy up all the pork pies and the clotted cream in the British shop where I am.