Why are banks so slow and antiquated in Ireland?

eth0_

Banks are really pi**ing me off lately. First off, why is it if you have an account in, say, AIB in say, Meath, but you work in Dublin so obviously you can't do your daily banking at *your* branch, which means you have to lodge cheques in perhaps the O'Connell St branch.

Why is it, that they have to post your cheque to your branch, a process which often takes several DAYS, for your branch to post the cheque back to the clearing centre in Dublin? This is quite frankly ridiculous! It's the same bloody bank, why do they need to send your cheque back to your branch?

Yesterday morning I went into AIB in the IFSC to make an IBAN transfer to Germany which I explained really had to be in the receivers account by Thursday. I filled out the form, and after i'd done all that was told "That's grand, we'll post this to your branch and then they'll do the transfer". It's UNREAL! This is 2004 - why does every bloody thing have to go back to your branch? I'd say the majority of people can't easily get to their branch and the banks make themselves as inflexible as possible here.

In the UK all the banks open for a few hours on a Saturday and open later during the week than our banks do here...why do we get treated like crap by our banks?

l3rian

Why is it, that they have to post your cheque to your branch,

They will lodge the cheque the same day, and its added to your account as uncleared funds. The 3 working day clearing process is primarily to prevent cheque fraud

I filled out the form, and after i'd done all that was told "That's grand, we'll post this to your branch and then they'll do the transfer". It's UNREAL! This is 2004 - why does every bloody thing have to go back to your branch?

Unreal alright eth0_. But if you think about it, they are making no profit on this transaction, so there is no motivation for them to do these transactions, and as youve experienced they will actually discourage people from doing them

Why dont you open an account in Dublin?

parsi

Originally posted by eth0_
Banks are really pi**ing me off lately. First off, why is it if you have an account in, say, AIB in say, Meath, but you work in Dublin so obviously you can't do your daily banking at *your* branch, which means you have to lodge cheques in perhaps the O'Connell St branch.

Why is it, that they have to post your cheque to your branch, a process which often takes several DAYS, for your branch to post the cheque back to the clearing centre in Dublin? This is quite frankly ridiculous! It's the same bloody bank, why do they need to send your cheque back to your branch?

Yesterday morning I went into AIB in the IFSC to make an IBAN transfer to Germany which I explained really had to be in the receivers account by Thursday. I filled out the form, and after i'd done all that was told "That's grand, we'll post this to your branch and then they'll do the transfer". It's UNREAL! This is 2004 - why does every bloody thing have to go back to your branch? I'd say the majority of people can't easily get to their branch and the banks make themselves as inflexible as possible here.

In the UK all the banks open for a few hours on a Saturday and open later during the week than our banks do here...why do we get treated like crap by our banks?

Hmm.. if you lodge an AIB cheque in an AIB bank you get value for the cheque immediately _and_ it is debited from the current account immediately - no 3-day period there. It was a shock when AIB brought that out - an end to buying the shopping by cheque a few days before payday...

Regarding transfers to Germany - AIB 24hr banking do this over the phone for you - a wee bit slow with calling out and quaruple checking codes etc but it can all be done from the couch...

I don't think we should fall into the trap of thinking UK banks are better - just look at their papers and see the complaints or even look at the ads for NatWest which slag off the way other banks have gone...I think banks are the same the world over - they want to hold on to your money for as long as possible and charge you as high fees as possible..

The Brigadier

That only applies if you have an account in good standing.

If you have a new account or have had cheques bounce into your account in the past (cheques you have lodged not writted) they will wait for the cheque to go through clearing

MrPudding

Count yourself lucky you are not with National Irish Bank. The branch in Walkinstown has one PC between 4 tellers at the counter. It still has a green screen. It is only used to check account balances, they do not put transactions through it. Transactions are done manually by folks at desks behind the counter. If you lodge cash, cash , in a branch other than your own it takes 3 days to appear on your account. I have not made a mistake. 3 days for cash to appear in your account if you lodge it in a branch other than the one you opened the account in.

It is the bank from the 80s.

MrP

eth0_

|3rian - if you lodge a cheque in a branch which isn't YOUR branch, it is sent to YOUR branch before it is lodged. Obviously if it is an AIB cheque this is different but the cheques i'm lodging are usually from the UK.

As for opening an account in Dublin - why the hell should I? I've been with Baggot st AIB for 3 years and before that I jumped around BOI and Ulster bank and tbh i'd rather just stick with one branch now because it looks very bad if you're chopping and changing.

As for doing the IBAN over the phone - my friend told me about this last night, this made me really mad when I think I told the teller it was urgent, why didn't she tell me I could do it all over the phone - the money would have been received by now if I hadn't gone into the fscking branch!

I really wish someone would setup an internet only bank in Ireland like cahoot.com or smile.com. I was with cahoot before and they're fantastic, imagine never having to queue in a branch again!

seamus

Yeah, the lack of integration is completely laughable. It's like each branch is a business of their own, they just a happen to have the same name - like a frickin supermarket or something.

BOI will make you wait for the cheque to clear before putting the funds into your account, unless you lodge/cash the cheque at the branch of payer's account. Ridiculous.

My housemate took out €200 from a BOI cash machine outside Wyeth in Clondalkin. Except it didn't give him €200. It gave him nothing. But still took €200 from his account. We live in Lucan, he's from Sligo (So his account is there), and this particular month he was working nights. So he decided to go down to the Lucan BOI, since he has no car, and Wyeth isn't close (he gets a lift to work). After some hmming and hawing, the girl tells him, "No our machine was fine yesterday". So he tells her, "It happened at Wyeth". "Oh, you'll need to go to that branch then to sort that out."
So he goes down there, they find that yes, there was a problem with their cash machine. But when they find out that his account is in Sligo, he's told he has to go into that branch to get his account recredited. So he does, and they tell him it'll take about 3 days, because they have to send the request down to Clondalkin (the same request he made about the machine), and then it comes back to Sligo, and the recredit the account.

I mean, WTF? In this day and age, surely it's easier (and makes infinitely more sense) to have a central database of all accounts, and all branches work from that.

The Brigadier

I used to have home insurance with BOI. I received a payout for a claim from them. I lodged into the branch it was drawn on (college green) it needed to be posted to my branch (3 working days) before it cleared (further 3 working days)

Did they not trust BOI Insurance to have the money?

eth0_

AIB lost my IBAN form during the long and arduous journey from the IFSC to Baggot street. :-(
So I had to do it over the phone in the end. Oh, and it takes FOUR working days now, when I was told in the branch it takes TWO!

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by eth0_
why do we get treated like crap by our banks?

Can you spell cartel? Or "no competition"? Or "why would I be arsed, what are you going to do about it"? It's the same old story in Ireland - they really have no incentive to provide you with a decent service. They know people see it as too much hassle to change all their standing orders and the likes when the banks piss them off.

I have to say, though, my local Ulster Bank is brilliant. There was a crusty old todger of a bank manager who was of the old stock - he was the boss and by God you licked his arse if you want anything. Now they have a very nice lady in charge and she is brilliant. I have rang a few times with queries about charges on my account and several times they have refunded me spurious charges.

trap4

I can sympathise.

On wednesday last week I went to my local AIB to finish my Worldpay Merchant account application. I handed the bank official a form the likes of which she's apparently never seen before and she informed me that she'd have to 'ask someone' about it and then process it on Thursday. On Friday she phoned me to say she was off on holidays and requested that I come in on Monday with my company registration certificate and Memorandum and Articles of Association.

I protested that they should have already had copies of the same since they were required when setting up my company bank account. She acknowledged that and apologised that they had somehow been mislaid. So, rather grumpily, I drove back to the bank yesterday and submitted the required documents for further photocopying. With any luck we'll actually have our new merchant account setup by next week :-(


~~~~~~~~~~
-Jim.
http://eirepreneur.blogs.com

Victor

Originally posted by seamus
It's like each branch is a business of their own

Thats because they are. They are operated as different business units. Fees for a transaction on a given account are credited to the branch where the account is, not where the transaction is actually handled. This results in branches being slow to handle other braches accounts.

Originally posted by eth0_
So I had to do it over the phone in the end. Oh, and it takes FOUR working days now, when I was told in the branch it takes TWO!

There are two different services. 2 days costs something like €20, 4 day costs €0.50 or so.

eth0_

Originally posted by Victor
There are two different services. 2 days costs something like €20, 4 day costs €0.50 or so.

The €20 one is next day. The €0.75 one takes 4 days. Although, my money was sent Thursday morning - and it STILL hasn't been received! So thats, hmm....nearly six days.

Khalim

i feel the pain too...

i went into dun laoghaire branch aib and handed in the Paylink Euro form during my lunch break last wednesday week (30 june).

on thursday morning i was a bit puzzled that it hasn't gone through yet so i put in a call to the dun laoghaire branch. they said i needed to checkup with my branch so i gave them a ring.

i rang my branch in baggot street and they said they never received the form from the dun laoghaire branch

they apologised to me and asked me send in the form again. if i had read this post earlier i would have just done it over 24 hour banking rather than the long wait.

i just hope they process only one of them ...

parsi

Originally posted by eth0_
The €20 one is next day. The €0.75 one takes 4 days. Although, my money was sent Thursday morning - and it STILL hasn't been received! So thats, hmm....nearly six days.

I suppose just to re-iterate the 24hr-banking option - I made my payment on Monday evening and it arrived in Germany on Thursday - so bear this in mnd if you are an AIB customer and use 24Hour banking

(edit to correct spelling)

jesus_thats_gre

Part of the reason everything is so slow is the fact that all their systems are based on old Mainframe systems and batch processing... The thing is, most banks in the world also use these legacy systems and it is not likely to change soon... Lets face it, from the banks perspectve, a system that has been working for 30 odd years pretty much 99% of the time is a good system... If there systems go down they face severe penalties, something like if they are down for over 3 days they can loose their banking license... Who is going to take on a modernisation project with that hanging over their head..

frogprince

The banking experience is horrible in Ireland. Especially because I come from India, where we have:
* many banks that are open 8am to 8pm 7 days a week 365 days!
* they deliver cash to your doorstep!
* we get 6% returns on a savings account
* they are NEVER short staffed
* they even give you advice on money management

there is simply no comparison.

stepbar

eth0_ wrote:

Banks are really pi**ing me off lately. First off, why is it if you have an account in, say, AIB in say, Meath, but you work in Dublin so obviously you can't do your daily banking at *your* branch, which means you have to lodge cheques in perhaps the O'Connell St branch.

Why is it, that they have to post your cheque to your branch, a process which often takes several DAYS, for your branch to post the cheque back to the clearing centre in Dublin? This is quite frankly ridiculous! It's the same bloody bank, why do they need to send your cheque back to your branch?

Yesterday morning I went into AIB in the IFSC to make an IBAN transfer to Germany which I explained really had to be in the receivers account by Thursday. I filled out the form, and after i'd done all that was told "That's grand, we'll post this to your branch and then they'll do the transfer". It's UNREAL! This is 2004 - why does every bloody thing have to go back to your branch? I'd say the majority of people can't easily get to their branch and the banks make themselves as inflexible as possible here.

A lot of it has to do with the heavy regulation in the industry. Auditors are the bane of every employees life. What might sound like the common sense way of doing things must be done in accordance to the rules put down by the financial regulator / auditors. At the end of the day its all about covering everyones ass, most branches dont want the hassle / responcibility of sorting out the sh1te of other branches in the event of things going wrong. Its bad enough when things go wrong and its the branches own customer. It really does p1ss me off sometimes.

arctictree

frogprince wrote:

The banking experience is horrible in Ireland. Especially because I come from India, where we have:
* many banks that are open 8am to 8pm 7 days a week 365 days!
* they deliver cash to your doorstep!
* we get 6% returns on a savings account
* they are NEVER short staffed
* they even give you advice on money management

there is simply no comparison.

Unfortunately here, companies go to great lengths to take manual processes out of everything. This even extends to customer service. I suppose its because labour has become expensive...

A

Ruu_Old

Hours in US banks where I live are roughly the same except most of them open Saturday and the transaction is processed the next business day of course. Now there are mini banks that are open an hour or two after the main banks close which is very handy when late from work and want to deposit or whatever else.

Eoin

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Part of the reason everything is so slow is the fact that all their systems are based on old Mainframe systems and batch processing... The thing is, most banks in the world also use these legacy systems and it is not likely to change soon... Lets face it, from the banks perspectve, a system that has been working for 30 odd years pretty much 99% of the time is a good system... If there systems go down they face severe penalties, something like if they are down for over 3 days they can loose their banking license... Who is going to take on a modernisation project with that hanging over their head..

Exactly right - I don't know about banks, but I have heard that other large corporations (telecomms companies in particular) in Europe have tried to switch from old mainframe systems at the cost of millions, if not billions - and failed.

I shudder to think of the overhead, potential for disaster, cost etc that would be involved with this kind of project.

siobhanher

Went into AIB yesterday at around 10 am. I give her in a cheque from my employer who holds an account at the same branch, that AIB. I ask her if it'll clear immediately since it's AIB to AIB and she said no because it's crossed. I was like wtf i'm standing right here with identification and everything. She said it would be done by tomorrow it was overnight. Went to take money out today with my card and it said insufficient funds over 24 hours later, lucky I didn't use my laser and decided to check first. I just checked online now and it's still marked as uncleared funds. -_-'

I hate banks.

stepbar

siobhanher wrote: »

Went into AIB yesterday at around 10 am. I give her in a cheque from my employer who holds an account at the same branch, that AIB. I ask her if it'll clear immediately since it's AIB to AIB and she said no because it's crossed. I was like wtf i'm standing right here with identification and everything. She said it would be done by tomorrow it was overnight. Went to take money out today with my card and it said insufficient funds over 24 hours later, lucky I didn't use my laser and decided to check first. I just checked online now and it's still marked as uncleared funds. -_-'

I hate banks.

Meh, cash the damm chq if it causes such a problem. It's hardly the cashiers fault that the bank has a 3 day clearing cycle for AIB to AIB chqs......

siobhanher

Can't cash a crossed cheque that has &Co written between the lines, it has to be lodged into an account.

vibe666

jebus, where did you dig this thread up? it started in 2004 and has already been dug up a couple of times already. lol, the thread that wouldn't die!

the banks are slow here because whilst they are dragging their feet with your money they are investing it in the overnight markets and making a mint off your cash whilst it's not in anyone elses possession. they're all in on it and it's a total scam.

i've worked on an IT contract in a couple of banksin the past and it takes a few seconds for them to send thousands of euros anywhere in the world and it could very easily be automated and applied to consumer accounts, but the banks make too much money to give that away.

this iban nonsense is exactly that.

my sister was living in holland and she sent me some money whilst at home via her online banking system with nothing more than my name, account number and sort code here and it took less than 2 hours for the money to be available in my irish account.

if i transfer money to my g/f's aib account from my ptsb one (or visa versa) it takes 3 days and during that time the originating bank is using my money whilst neither of us has it in our accounts to invest in all sorts of different things.