107 replies to this topic

[andrewj100]

If you set up the bank account transfer and use the fast pay system it's not going to be any slower than transfering money between another bank account, exactly the same speed as transfering money from HSBC to Abbey at the moment.

The debit card system was a bit impractical as it was, to be useable it realy should have been able to encrypt and remember your card details rather than have you entering them all the time, that left you open to packet interception (thanks to SSL having a user generated vulnerability) or key loggers so was a bit of a security no no anyway.

As of now I can make sure I have a modestly funded offer put asside with a nice high rate and take advantage of times money runs low and the rates start to rise.

[savaroony]

MikeS1531, on Nov 10 2009, 08:39 PM, said:

I may have uncovered a shortcoming of the new system in the process, however...  I have more than one debit card that I've used to fund my Zopa account in the past, but the new system doesn't seem to allow more than one DD to be set up.  I may be missing something, but it looks like I'd have to cancel my existing DD and set up one on the other account if I ever wanted to bring in funds from a different account.  Then I'd have to cancel that DD and set up one from scratch on the first account again afterwards -- with a two-week delay every time I want to make a change.  

There seems to be a similar restriction when withdrawing funds, in that any withdrawal seems to have to go to the same account that the DD is set up on.  If I try the Transfer Out link now, I'm told that the transfer will be made to the account shown and "You can't change your bank account since you have an active direct debit associated with this account."  Does this mean that in order to process a withdrawal to a different account I have to cancel my existing DD and set up a new one to the account I wish the withdrawal to go to -- with the usual 2-week delay?  And then go through the process again in reverse to restore my original DD two weeks after that?

ISTM that this new procedure will result in an awful lot of activity setting up and cancelling DDs.  Maybe these cost nothing to process and are completely automated so it's all very easy for Zopa, but it does seem a bit of unnecessary work for lenders, not to mention the extra delays caused.

Can I therefore request that Zopa urgently develop an option in the new DD system to allow a lender to have more than one DD active at any given time?  I have a credit card account that I can pay off online using any of my current accounts.  Once the instructions were set up, whenever I wish to make a payment I'm presented with a screen showing the various accounts I can use and I just click on the one I wish to use for the next transaction.  It should be possible to set up the same choices for lenders wishing to transfer funds into, or withdraw funds from, their Zopa account.

Unfortunately, anti-moneylaundering procedures are getting ever tighter so we have had to restrict this as you describe. As you say, it's not ideal.

We'll also look into whether we can run the process that allocates funds from Faster Payments more regularly through the day - this will not be a quick fix however.

And finally, we would have dearly liked to retain the debit card functionality, but as we've said the situation is out of our hand and we don't believe we'd be any more successful with an alternative provider.

[figures18]

savaroony, on Nov 11 2009, 10:01 AM, said:

We'll also look into whether we can run the process that allocates funds from Faster Payments more regularly through the day - this will not be a quick fix however.

Savaroony, I sent a small faster payments at 1700 last night and it was applied to my zopa account at 0953 this morning.  Is it the case at present then, that the allocation of funds process is run shortly after Zopa open for business?  If lenders know when this run takes place those using faster payments can aim off to link in with it until such time as the process is run more regularly through the day.

[MikeS1531]

figures18, on Nov 11 2009, 10:12 AM, said:

I sent a small faster payments at 1700 last night and it was applied to my zopa account at 0953 this morning.

Can't complain about that level of service!  

Now if I could just get my bank to use the Faster Payments system whenever I ask them to...  

[figures18]

figures18, on Nov 11 2009, 10:12 AM, said:

Savaroony, I sent a small faster payments at 1700 last night and it was applied to my zopa account at 0953 this morning.

MikeS1531, on Nov 11 2009, 12:45 PM, said:

Can't complain about that level of service!  

Now if I could just get my bank to use the Faster Payments system whenever I ask them to...  

Well that's all fine and dandy but RBS will have had my money 2-4 hrs after it leaving my bank.  If they complied with the new FSA regs they'll have applied it to the client account (Zopa's) immediately.  The sticking point is getting it from there into my lending a/c, (unless I'm missing something really fundamental here?)

Mike   , with the amount of bank accounts you say you've got surely one of them can sort out faster payments  

Edited by figures18, 11 November 2009 - 13:14.

[Elp@And]

Making online transactions I have paid a range of people and businesses through Paypal and Nochex. They seem to get the money fairly fast.

Can someone tell me if that is a feasible option to make faster payments to Zopa?

[alexp2000]

Elp@And, on Nov 11 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

Making online transactions I have paid a range of people and businesses through Paypal and Nochex. They seem to get the money fairly fast.

Can someone tell me if that is a feasible option to make faster payments to Zopa?

With Paypal charging fees of (at my last check) 3.25%, I can't see it being economically viable for Zopa unless they pass those charges on to the lender using the service, and in that case, does anyone really want to write off 3.25% over their money before a penny gets lent out?

[figures18]

Elp@And, on Nov 11 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

Making online transactions I have paid a range of people and businesses through Paypal and Nochex. They seem to get the money fairly fast.........

Apart from the points highlighted by Alexp, if I'm understanding correctly the 'delay' isn't getting money into Zopa's client account (by faster payments/paypal etc) it's the movement of said funds into lenders accounts which is only happening once a day at present.   And this is where we are with that issue at present

savaroony, on Nov 11 2009, 10:01 AM, said:

We'll also look into whether we can run the process that allocates funds from Faster Payments more regularly through the day - this will not be a quick fix however.

[LYNNIT]

I found it hard to deposit more than 2k via a debit card anyway so I've already set up a standing order via online banking - its a lot easier to have it all set up with the correct reference etc.  If I want to add more I just go in and make an extra payment using the same references, so nothing to remember.

The word is spreading about Zopa and I expect that neither the Banks nor the Government will really like it - it's one of those things that's about to change everything. There's a name for it but in typical Baby boomer style I've forgotten the phrase!

Anyway, I'm still spreading the word - every single one of my clients (about 300 and they're nearly all over 50) now knows about Zopa - Even if they dont open an account the name becomes familiar and talked about in ever more widening circles.

[figures18]

LYNNIT, on Nov 11 2009, 09:38 PM, said:

....................

post, thanks.  

ps.  Pusscat has the same avatar as you.  Are we going to be overrun by kittens on the forum - should I call in squirrel reinforcements  

[chilterncom1]

figures18, on Nov 11 2009, 09:51 PM, said:

- should I call in squirrel reinforcements  

No thank you - I already have too many devouring my holly berries ;  there'll be none left by Christmas.  

I prefer cats. Would that there were more like LYNNIT   That was a helpful and encouraging post.

[zmp]

MikeS1531, on Nov 11 2009, 12:45 PM, said:

figures18, on Nov 11 2009, 10:12 AM, said:

I sent a small faster payments at 1700 last night and it was applied to my zopa account at 0953 this morning.

Can't complain about that level of service!  

Erm... I type my card details into my share dealing account at 17:00 and my funds are applied to my account at .... 17:00.
Same thing with almost every other financial transaction site out there. How exactly does an overnight process make that a "can't complain" level of service?

[alexp2000]

zmp, on Nov 11 2009, 10:11 PM, said:

Erm... I type my card details into my share dealing account at 17:00 and my funds are applied to my account at .... 17:00.
Same thing with almost every other financial transaction site out there. How exactly does an overnight process make that a "can't complain" level of service?

You're lucky I think, certainly several of the sites I use, including eTrade, won't credit from a debit card outside of work hours, and even then I was told it could take up to an hour for it to be processed - in which case the time taken would have been mighty similar to that experienced by figures.

[zmp]

alexp2000, on Nov 11 2009, 10:47 PM, said:

You're lucky I think, certainly several of the sites I use, including eTrade, won't credit from a debit card outside of work hours, and even then I was told it could take up to an hour for it to be processed - in which case the time taken would have been mighty similar to that experienced by figures.

I had a look and I stand corrected, yes eTrade is a bit weird with their payments but then much of their setup is. I don't use my eTrade account much, though I like their platform. Selftrade lets you buy funds in an ISA, and transfers in are definitely immediate. If you use spreadbetting, IG Index & Tradefair transfers are also immediate anytime.

[Goldfinger]

Do I need to cancel my standing order and set up a DD?

[alexp2000]

Goldfinger, on Nov 12 2009, 01:13 PM, said:

Do I need to cancel my standing order and set up a DD?

No. Read the 'transfer money in' pages.

[giles]

figures18, on Nov 11 2009, 09:21 PM, said:

Apart from the points highlighted by Alexp, if I'm understanding correctly the 'delay' isn't getting money into Zopa's client account (by faster payments/paypal etc) it's the movement of said funds into lenders accounts which is only happening once a day at present.   And this is where we are with that issue at present

Rather a voyage of discovery for me as Christian deals with the banking operational stuff and he's away on holiday.

The bottleneck is that RBS only give us an elecronic file detailing all the transactions into the client account once a working day. We use this file to allocate funds to lenders' accounts automatically using the reference numbers. The cut-off for the file is money received into the client account by 6pm each day, so to be safe I would say the cut-off for lenders making fast pay transfers from their bank accounts would be about 5pm. The file is created overnight and we process it in the morning.  So a lender initiating a transfer by fast pay before 5pm should have the funds available in their holding account the following working morning.

So it's not a question of us processing the transfers more often as we can't do it more than the number of times we get a new file. Normal BACS payments to us are in the same file and it is the way we have been processing BACS transfers for some time. I don't think manual processing of lender transfers using online bank statements is a good idea. Sounds like we need to work with with the bank to make further progress but I wouldn't expect that to be quick I'm afraid.

[chilterncom1]

giles, on Nov 12 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

So it's not a question of us processing the transfers more often as we can't do it more than the number of times we get a new file. Normal BACS payments to us are in the same file and it is the way we have been processing BACS transfers for some time. I don't think manual processing of lender transfers using online bank statements is a good idea. Sounds like we need to work with with the bank to make further progress but I wouldn't expect that to be quick I'm afraid.

Clearly you can't process information until you get it from RBS, and my instinct is to agree that manual processing using online statements would introduce quite a potential for error and loss of control - quite apart from the inefficiency.  However, even a twice-a-day feed from RBS would offer a significant reduction in the theoretical maximum processing time (assuming that the time freed up from processing debit card transactions could be used to deal with a second feed), bearing in mind that it is in the evening that many lenders will, I imagine, tend to be active and initiate transfers, and that's when the delay between initiation and eventual processing is theoretically greatest under the current arrangement. I'm sure you'll be pressing for an improvement in RBS's service!

[Uncle Tone]

giles, on Nov 12 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

...so to be safe I would say the cut-off for lenders making fast pay transfers from their bank accounts would be about 5pm. The file is created overnight and we process it in the morning.  So a lender initiating a transfer by fast pay before 5pm should have the funds available in their holding account the following working morning.

And there's me testing the water by transferring in £50 at six o'clock....  

[PoohBah]

giles, on Nov 12 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

The bottleneck is that RBS only give us an elecronic file detailing all the transactions into the client account once a working day.

It is worth bearing in mind that faster payments made over the weekend (that is, after the Friday cut-off) are treated as Monday transactions (the next working day), thus the list won't reach Zopa until Tuesday.  Bank holidays will stretch things out even more.  I doubt that this is exclusively an RBS issue.  Faster Payments is, alas, only a first small step in dragging the banking system kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.

I suppose it might be worth investigating how the organisations mentioned above can credit their clients' accounts immediately, but they are probably far bigger businesses and can afford the start-up and running costs of a real-time feed.