Online bank transfers
I use RBS/Natwest online banking and most of the time when I pay bills it tells me that the money will arrive the same day, and I know that this is frequently the case because when I make a payment from a company RBS account to my personal Natwest account the recipt in my personl account shows almost straightaway.
I have just done the payment of my 31 July tax payment and (altghough it is to an HMRC Natwest account) the screen says that it will take three days.
Nobody at Natwest is able to give anything approaching an exaplanation - they say things like "well just pay it three days earlier".
Does anyone know why this is so?
Apparently so ...
To be fair, HMRC may receive the money into its one and only bank account on the same day, but it then takes two working days to allocate it to the particular client's account.
It is a bit like paying money to building society accounts. Even now, when Nationwide has individual clearing bank account numbers for each customer, they still do not operate the faster payments scheme, which is less excusable than the HMRC delay.
Not faster payment yet
I understand the receiving bank is not yet able to use the faster banking service.