Online Banking Payment Dates?

[Keebler Elf]

When you pay a bill via internet banking with a financial institution, is the date of payment considered the day you actually activate the transaction or is it the date the bank processes it?

I thought I read somewhere that the banks tell you it takes a few days to process but in reality the law says it's considered done the day you actually make the transaction.

Anyone know for sure?

 

[fuji]

You will get different answers to this question, and the honest answer is, "it depends".

On what?

It depends on which way makes the bank the most money. Usually that means they'll draw it out to 3-5 business days if they can, either to hold the money in transit, or to cause you to miss a credit card payment deadline and incur huge amounts of interest.

Every now and then they are the recipient of the money and there is no interest to be earned by making it take some time, in those cases, it'll clear either instantly, or overnight.

Seriously.

The banks have all sorts of reasonable sounding explanations for why it is this way, but it always seems to work out that those things coincidentally work in the banks favour.

By the way, TD Bank made a record $873 million in profit in just three months, in its last quarterly report.

 

[WinterHawk]

The Banks used to credit you when you made a payment to one of it's products before 3pm on the due date. If you're making a payment to ANYONE else, it should just take 24 hours, because most of the bank's systems run updates at night and exchange information early the next morning after most of their batch processing streams have completed. Then it's up to the Bank where you payment went to accept the payment and process it. Which takes another day. Then think of it. If you're making a payment to Sears, HBC, "the City", etc... they get notified of your payment but it may not go through their systems until the 3rd day, acknowldging your payment on the 4th day.

That's why the S.O.B's hold on to your money.

If memory serves me correctly, the Law used to say that once you put the "Cheque in the Mail", that was when you paid for it. And you could use the postage stamp as proof of payment. By doing everything online, it's all up to the Bank.

There is a reason their making money hand over fist.

 

[zekestone]

If I have a bill due on July 25th, for example, I set the payment date to July 25th. Never had a problem.

 

[t8rs]

If I have a bill due on July 25th, for example, I set the payment date to July 25th. Never had a problem.

I essentially do the same with all my credit card bills. If you're pushing your credit limit, though, note that it takes a few days for the payment to be posted and restoring your available credit. Some cards have the option of automatically debiting your bank account on the payment due date (freeing up your credit the next day).

I used to pay the phone bill a few days in advance, even online, as I remember incurring late charges when transacting on the due date. I just pay all bills I can on credit card now anyways, so it's not an issue anymore.

 

[tboy]

It varies, some banks say right on their site that any transactions are processed the next business day but if you actually go INTO the bank, at any time, and pay your bills and get a teller's stamp, that is legally paid and your CC company (or any other for that matter) cannot do SFA about it. They may try, but they don't have a legal leg to stamp on because the teller's stamp says you paid it on the date of the stamp. (whew, that was a long one).

Bottom line: check the legal notes on your bank's website, it will be confirmed there....

 

[Keebler Elf]

Nah, the issue is I'm paying off a bill completely but I want to make sure that I don't end up with a balance of a few pennies if the bank post-dates it.

 

[Boyscout352]

There are two things to keep in mind: 1) cut-off time 2) Which bank does the settlement.

The day that you pay your bill online or on the phone or ABM, is the date that you paid the bill.

Make sure you know what time is the cut-off time if you want your bill to be processed on the same day. Otherwise if you make your payment after the cut-off time you bill will get processed the next business day at night.

If you are paying your credit card that is with the same bank that you do your banking with, the payment will go through overnight. The cut-off time still applies. Same thing applies to your other bills if the bank is the one that the merchant is setup with to do the settlement.

If you pay a credit card bill that is with a different bank than you bank with, it takes a couple of days for the payment to go through.

Hope this helps.

 

[raven@mirage]

The other day I paid my cell phone bill ... I use TD online banking then 2 days later it was posted on my cell phone bill account.

The day you make the payment its proccessed and sent out on the end of the bill receive they have thier own proccessing system of when they post thier payments.

Sometimes when I pay bills it post on thier end in 24 hours.