NS&I now an alternative to banks

Not sure Feck. Ms stew worked for the RBS for 22 years before the pressure became too much. I'll ask her when she comes home.

Cheers stewarty.

Just noticed I'm not logged in to betfair but am able to post.

The financial world lives off lazy money.
savings = lazy money

Better the government living off them than the banking parasites or the hedge fund fraudsters.

Hello Feck, the answer is yes. (just phoned her) The procedure will take 3-4 days as you probably know. CHAPS, as again you will probably know is the same day but costs a minimum of £25.

Thanks stewarty.

btw Feck, I haven't forgot about your temp. E.Mail address post. I've just had a lot on my plate recently. I will probably look into an alternitive, as the last time I put an E.Mail address, ( on horseracing about 4 years ago) it turned into a nightmare. (long story). I'm sure there are one or two questions I could ask you on here that wouldn't be of a private nature.

On another subject, Ms stew left the RBS after working her way up only to get pressurised into trying to persuade customers to take out policies and credit cards etc. that the customer didn't need. Having said that, she now works for a small firm that specialises in mortages, investments and pensions. (she is not on commission!!) The company don't advertise as her boss has had clients for up to 30 years and i'ts all word of mouth. If you, or any other forumite want free advice on these subjects feel free to ask. (there will be no business involved!!)


For example, re: the guarantee limit of 50K per banking group, you could have £50k each with say Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, C&G and Birmingham Midshires but as they are part of the same banking group you would only have £50k guaranteed not£250k.

Stewarty,

Sorry but I think you have it the wrong way round.

Lloyds and Halifax etc continue to operate with separate licenses.
In fact I received a telephone survey call(on behalf of LBG) a few months ago and one of the things mentioned was that customers can split any deposits over 50K over various members of Lloyds Banking Group and be protected under the FSCS.

Of course that could all change when the integration is complete.Depends on the FSA I suppose.

Unfortunately I don't have to worry about it.[;)]

stewarty b,

I remember reading a while back, that the banks (in the UK) are finally going to do away with the antiquated system of transfers and adopt an instant transfer system. Do you know anything about this?

Night shift, that's not my understaning of it. However, sincere apologies if I've got that wrong. I don't want to mislead anyone. However, if you take Santander for example, they have Abbey, A&L and Bradford &Bingly under their umbrella. Best take advice from an independent financial advisor re: licences.

The Investor, banks make a tidy sum out of this practice at the moment. Ms stew advises me that they are unlikely to be in a rush to change this system in the near future. (unfair as it stands at the moment)

Stewarty,

Good point concerning Santander.I don't know how their licenses stand at present.

That's the thing though,there isn't enough publicity given to this issue, which leaves everyone in the dark most of the time.

The Sunday papers occasionally latch on to this problem and would give useful information as to who operates under what license.

I must Google it and see what can be found.

Night Site.....

Have checked it out for savings limits and you are right, however Ms stew says that for buy to let lending, all companies within the group are included and assumed it referred to savings as well.

Important information about compensation arrangements
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).  The FSCS can pay compensation to depositors if a bank is unable to meet its financial obligations.  Most depositors - including most individuals and small businesses - are covered by the scheme.

In respect of deposits, an eligible depositor is entitled to claim up to £50,000.  For joint accounts each account holder is treated as having a claim in respect of their share so, for a joint account held by two eligible depositors, the maximum amount that could be claimed would be £50,000 each (making a total of £100,000).  The £50,000 limit relates to the combined amount in all the eligible depositor's accounts with the bank including their share of any joint account, and not to each separate account.

For further information about the scheme (including the amounts covered and eligibility to claim) please ask at your local branch, refer to the FSCS website www.FSCS.org.uk or call 020 7892 7300 or 0800 678 1100.

Deposits with us are held with Bank of Scotland plc.  Accounts with Bank of Scotland plc include accounts with its divisions and trading names: Halifax, Intelligent Finance (IF), Birmingham Midshires (BM Savings), Bank of Scotland, Bank of Scotland Private Banking, Bank of Scotland Germany, Bank of Scotland The Netherlands, St James's Place Bank and St James's Place Private Bank. Some savings accounts under the AA Savings, Saga and Charities Aid Foundation brand names are also deposits with Bank of Scotland plc.  An eligible depositor’s £50,000 limit relates to the combined amount in accounts under all of these names.

stewarty, thanks for the advice offer. I understand about the email address. Feel free to ask any questions you think i can answer on here.

Thanks Stewarty.

I understand the banks won't do this willingly.

The system was set up after the Office of Fair Trading, acting on consumers' complaints, told the banks in 2005 to make the system faster. An original deadline of last November was extended.

2005

It seems they have in fact done diddly squat in the last 5 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7417303.stm

Anybody know a bank with high BACS limits that also allow CHAPS transfers online. Lloyds TSB only allow a total of 10K BACS a day and no CHAPS online.

Have alook at this article Stewarty.

It looks like we are both nearly right.

Lloyds/C&G have one license while Halifax BOS and Birm Mid etc have another between them.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/savings-and-banking/article.html?in_article_id=440726&in_page_id=7

Night sight, as MS stew says, it's too complicated and needs to be updated as the majority of people with basic knowledge could be caught unaware.

Feck, as far as Ms Stew is aware that is the limit for BACS through RBS as well and cannot do CHAPS online.  She will look into it further for you.

Thanks stewarty. You can do a CHAPS transfer online from Northern Rock (& I think NS&I - not tried the latter yet) to your one and only external nominated account but that's all I've come across. It is one lengthy business when you have to do it in a branch.

Nationwide offer CHAPS online I think.

Details here.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/search/DisplayArticle.aspx?article=1403

Feck
The £10k limit for online payments with Lloyds is actually the limit for individual payments. The daily limit is £30k.

This means that if you need to pay someone more than £10k you can get round the transaction limit  by setting up 2(or 3) seperate payments to the same benificiary on the same day.

Also for personal customers a lot of the payments are done via the new Faster Payment method which means they are same day transfers. For some reason commercial customers can not send faster payments yet.

The rules on what goes via faster payment and what doesn't are complicated because every bank has different rules on what can be sent or received this way.

Jack, thanks. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Swindon, thanks for the post but where did you get that info? I recently had to send around 12K to my brother's account and had to do a payment of 10K. I attempted a further one for 2K and I received an error message that I had exceeded my daily limit even though that 10K transfer was my sole activity that day.

Feck

Think of each entry in your list of recipients as a payment instruction with a limit of £10k per day. You are able to set up more than one instruction for the same beneficiary.

So to pay £15k you would need the beneficiary listed twice. Use one to pay £10k and the other for the remaining £5k, to pay £30k you would need the beneficiary listed 3 times so you can make one payment of £10k on each of them.

This was all explained to me by their Internet Helpdesk
whose details are below if you have problems

"Call us on 0800 015 0158.
We’re open 7am-10pm Mon – Fri, 8am-6pm Sat – Sun.
If you need to call us from abroad you can also call us on +44 (0)1733 232030."

Thanks swindon.

National savings have always been an alternative to banks.  Seeing as they are a "not for profit" organisation and don't employ fraudsters lol they should be able to pass on these double savings and offer better rates should they not? Or are you asking us to subsidise the incompetent public sector workers and their very generous pensions?

They were previously a snail mail / post office queue alternative. You feel free to continue contributing to your "betters".