MartinLuther

This wasn't an intentional race but on Monday I decided to move money from my UK ING Savings account to my Abbey account. Also I decided to buy some pounds (as they're going cheap) so I moved some money from my Bankwest account to my cheque account then to Hifx who then put the money into my Abbey account.

The money from Aus arrived on Wednesday, the money from the UK arrived on Thursday. Allowing for the bank holiday then it took exactly the same amount of time to transfer money from my Aus savings account to my UK current account as it did to transfer savings from my UK savings account.

Why does it take so long to transfer money in the UK? Where does it go? Who gets the interest?

Rossi

How do you think the banks cover the costs of "free" banking in the UK

MartinLuther

Recently I assumed it was the British tax payer

twizzle

It takes so long because it's in the banks best interests to take as long as they can get away with... even with the faster payments system, it's not as quick as it can be. And realistically, the transfers can be done same day. They just need to upgrade their systems, but they are loathe to move forward into the 21st century on this.

Who gets the interest? The bank you're transferring from. The money sits in a holding/clearing account until their system transfers the money to your nominated bank, all the while they're earning the 'interest' on it ie. they're able to use your money for their own purposes for that period of time.

That's what banks do.

Wol