rocco23:Jalexa: it was a couple of thousand, from a Lloyds current account to a current account at a different bank

An interesting update. What was needed was a Bank Giro paying in slip for the destination account. Then the funds would at worst have transferred via BACS. Should have asked if they had blank ones but they weren't on display.

So you didn't get very helpful advice from the branch but it maybe didn't make any difference.

Strange it's possible to do transfers online and by phone which apparently the branch can't do. What's the point of a branch almost.

rocco23:

it was a couple of thousand, from a Lloyds current account to a current account at a different bank

OK, I'm visiting Lloyds on Monday. Will attempt a similar test, unforutunately not a couple of thousand.

rocco23:

Strange.

Not necessarily. I've had a senior branch manager who was ignorant of some basic banking procedure.

I'm with all the sceptics here that there has been a misunderstanding but it would help if you confirmed two things (1) whether it was a transfer between accounts in the same bank and (2) approximately the size of the transfer.

The idea that BACS transfers have been withdrawn by all banks is completely false. For the momement consider internet or telephone banking. If a customer tries to make a transfer between accounts which both support faster banking, faster banking is employed and the money transfers almost instantly for free. If either account doesn't support faster banking the transfer defaults to BACS and takes 3 working days. There is one other criterion. If the sum involved is greater than the bank currently implemented limit, then BACS is used even if both accounts support faster banking. In the case of Lloyds, someone at Lloyds has so little confidence in security that the most recent limit I heard about was only £500. (in contrast RBS/NatWest are confident enough to stand beside the Faster Payments scheme limit of £10,000)

So the idea that BACS has been withdrawn is a ludicrous argument, particularly for Lloyds who have flunked faster banking but that may be the source of the managers confusion.

And if it was an inter-account transfer whether branch, internet or telephone, it should have been immediate anyway.

thanks Huckster. It was the manager she ended up with in the end - who was adamant that BACS transfers had been withdrawn by all banks. (Mind you, she still thought Abbey National was a building society...) Strange.

Rocco

It's perhaps a staff training issue. Previously I had attempted the same and was persuaded to form a one off standing order instead. When it (inevitably) went wrong I was told by the call centre staff that there was nothing stopping the branch issuing a BACS for me.

At any rate, you should no longer have to do this as accounts nowadays have the faster payment facility, whether it is an account with your bank or elsewhere. The number of sort codes that are not covered by this scheme are getting smaller all the time so it shouldn't really be an issue for the bank.

Rocco

A misunderstanding perhaps? Wrong info from Lloyds staff? You only have to fill in a form and it is then processed in a minute, not exactly a costly process. I doubt the branches would want to do too many CHAPS vouchers, as they are a pain. Your mother should contact the branch manager to check this.

Huckster

My mother has a Lloyds current account (and is not an internet user).

She wanted to transfer some money from the account to another account, but in the branch they told her that Lloyds (and supposedly all other banks) had withdrawn the option of requesting a BACS transfer. So they wanted to charge her £30 for doing the transfer by CHAPS.

Now after a good deal of reasoned argument it must be said that on this occasion they agreed to waive the fee. But is this true. And if so isn't it a scandal that banks have withdrawn the free (albeit slow) transfer mechanism. (Or is this really just a covert way of charging people who use the branch network?)

Rocco