banking via the computer

banking via the computer

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We make a lot of foreign payments using Royline for Windows (Royal Bank of Scotland). There are many things I do not particularly like about this system but it is installed and it works ' so I leave it be. I understand that the Royline system is due to be changed / merged / replaced by/with the Nat West banking system at some stage and this is an opportunity to look at whether we stay or go (the efficiency of the forign payments facility plays a big part in the bank we chose).

One of our major issues is the size of our database of foreign beneficiary bank details (rather big). I can access the Royline database through excel but it is encrypted and I need to manipulate it with a macro to un-encrypt it to be able to update the database I use to confirm details with beneficiaries. This is all very inefficient for us.

Does anyone have any experience of banking systems with an easy-to-access database of beneficiary details and, if so, is the system as a whole efficient for the user (rather than the bank).

Ruth Ballinger

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By Accounting WEB
07th Sep 2001 10:20

Overseas payments.... a new solution.
The issues of Bank's proprietory software serving their own needs rather than the needs of their customers is one which has been investigated by my Company over the last 4 years. We have many of the online systems and have found some faults or shortcomings with all of them despite assurances from each and every Bank that their software is "the best!" Do not expect Nat West Bank's system (or any other)to be without shortcomings as their system is not integrated between the purchasing of the currency on 'Comet' and the processing of the payment through 'Bankline'. You will have to manually transfer your currency deals between currency accounts before processing. We have utilised all the systems on offer in the U.K. and following this have devised a method of overcoming these 'problems' by effectively amalgamating the best from each system and providing a multi-bank service which actually nullifies any Bank Transaction charges when making overseas payments of Sterling-based liabilities. Foreign payments is a service which lends itself (quite easily) to outsourcing.
You should not have to change your Bank merely because the overseas payments service is not up to standard!...there is another solution. Take a look at this web-site for more information: http://www.intellexonline.com

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By jstuckey
07th Sep 2001 07:53

Also searching for a good bank
This seems like a gap in the market. Are any of the foreign banks competing in this area?

If they perform one is back to the first problem of the time delay on money transfers operated by the UK banks without paying for instant transfers.

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By AnonymousUser
07th Sep 2001 09:13

..do any of you have any banks as clients?
John, there is definitely a hole in the market for this and it is something that needs to be looked at.

I am surprised this has not raised more comment but this site is perhaps more widely used by advisers rather than we poor souls who have to actually move money around. But do any of you know how much time are your clients are wasting dealing with banks on issues that should be simple clockwork?

I find I am making complaints to our current bank weekly - their software does what they need not what we need, they process payments twice, they lose money sent into our account and if you ask them to trace a missing transaction using the originating reference, rather than their internal reference, they look at you as if you are speaking a foreign language. And all of the banks seem to be as bad as each other - although I am still hoping someone can point me to one which is better.

And take routing details to supply to foreign customers - our bank has now decided that I have to quote different routing details based on what currency the payer originates - try fitting their five page list at the bottom of your invoice (how am I supposed to know what currency they are going to settle in, I ask -ask each customer, they say - get real,I say; this is supposed to be a finance department not a chat show; you are asking me to triple the processing effort of every invoice!)
And compare this to the routing details the north european banks provide to their clients - one number that defines the bank, branch, and account number - is it really so difficult?

Someone out there must have some good news on this - are any of the banks addressing this as an issue? Do we have any bank advisers on this site who can comment on what their clients are up to?

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By AnonymousUser
04th Sep 2001 10:58

Banking on Pc's
We have a multi-million £ client who has exactly the same sort of problems with their bank.

Our experience is that UK banks do not see themselves a "suppliers" to business but "customers" therefore whatever they throw at you is what you have to live with.

We have yet to find any that can handle any serious volumes of foreign transactions without daily foul-ups with reconciliation systems and software at our clients end (and cost !) to deal with it.

Good luck with this one

Rgds

Alan

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