When you pay you bills through on-line banking...

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Dougal Short

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May 20, 2009
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...why does it take several days for the money to get to the creditor?

I would think that this is a straight-forward transaction and I doubt that some clerk at the bank checks all of the say, AMEX payments, before letting them go.

Is this just a ploy to borrow our money for a few days, interest free? It leaves my account right away, but doesn't show up at AMEX (to use the same example) for at least three or perhaps four business days. When you consider the zillions of dollars that temporarily "disappear" for a few days every month, the banks must make a fortune with our money.
 
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gcostanza

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Jul 24, 2010
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Buy the banks, end of problem.
 
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gcostanza

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3gs

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Dougal Short said:
...why does it take several days for the money to get to the creditor?

I would think that this is a straight-forward transaction and I doubt that some clerk at the bank checks all of the say, AMEX payments, before letting them go.

Is this just a ploy to borrow our money for a few days, interest free? It leaves my account right away, but doesn't show up at AMEX (to use the same example) for at least three or perhaps four business days. When you consider the zillions of dollars that temporarily "disappear" for a few days every month, the banks must make a fortune with our money.
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I'm pretty sure they also advise you of this issue. Which bank are you with? I can't say I've had issues with this. But at same time, that is also 1 reason why I pay my bills before the actual due date. Only time it takes more than 1 day for me is when it is a weekend. I remember once it didn't show up for 2 days...But I did pay very late that day. 3-4 days sounds very long, I would not be happy with that. But just start paying few days before your due date.
 
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Ohyesuare

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Oct 31, 2004
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I used to work for the Bill Payment Department of a major bank. The payments are deposited in bulk to the merchants everyday, who then receive a fax or email with the list of all the individual payments and who they came from. The merchants then have to apply the payments to the accounts so I believe the delay is mostly on their end. The funds are in a suspense account until the merchant receives them so I doubt it can be used to generate income from interest.
 
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EJunkie

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Feb 11, 2011
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Banks still use a lot of mainframe computing. You know, those applications that run once a day, usually at night. So if your transaction has to go through a few applications, it takes a few days,
 
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Tangwhich

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EJunkie said:
Banks still use a lot of mainframe computing. You know, those applications that run once a day, usually at night. So if your transaction has to go through a few applications, it takes a few days,
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Banks can make things go through fast in if they want to. I have had 2 cheques go through at unbelievable speed. One was paying CRA for some tax owed and the other was paying back the balance of a bank loan. In the case of the loan it was with a different back to my own and it was out of my account a few hours after I gave them the cheque.
 
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EJunkie

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Feb 11, 2011
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Tangwhich said:
Banks can make things go through fast in if they want to. I have had 2 cheques go through at unbelievable speed. One was paying CRA for some tax owed and the other was paying back the balance of a bank loan. In the case of the loan it was with a different back to my own and it was out of my account a few hours after I gave them the cheque.
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Very true if they want to. As an aside, if the processes are all in one bank they can watch it as it moves from one system to the next. They don't like to tell you that, but they can. Oh, and the withdrawal aps are real time. Figures :)
 
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Dougal Short

Exposed Member
May 20, 2009
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basketcase said:
As the bank collects that few days interest before transferring the funds.
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I guess that's my point. I pay well in advance so this isn't an issue of late payment, just curious about where the money "goes". As mentioned, the withdrawl part happens instantly....

In fairness, we all get somewhere between 31 and 30 days of interest-free borrowing as a minimum when we charge stuff to our credit cards, and perhaps as long as almost two months if we time it right, so I guess it all works out...
 
anon1

anon1

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Years ago the largest ever electronic transfer of funds was when Mobil bought Penzoil.The amount was in the tens of billions.
The story goes that someone delayed the transfer by a few minutes and collected hundreds of thousands in interest.
True or urban legend?
 
3

3gs

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May 17, 2011
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anon1 said:
Years ago the largest ever electronic transfer of funds was when Mobil bought Penzoil.The amount was in the tens of billions.
The story goes that someone delayed the transfer by a few minutes and collected hundreds of thousands in interest.
True or urban legend?
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Someone you are referring to is obviously the bank end right, can't be just one individual for themselves. I don't see this one person processing the payments would do that for any reason, other than if he would've gotten something in return for doing that.
 
M

Moraff

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Nov 14, 2003
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Shouldn't be too surprising that the money disappears instantly from your acct, otherwise what would stop you from withdrawing the same funds over and over?

While it may take payments a couple of days to post to your payees, mine all get credited to me on the day the money was taken from my acct, not the day it showed at their end
 
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