Why no bank transfers over weekend?

dulpit

Hey,

I've been waiting on a payment to process since Friday afternoon, it missed the sepa deadline so will be processed next business day, which is Tuesday. It got me wondering why these transfers don't process over weekend? I would have assumed that these transfers are automatic anyway, seems strange in this day and age that there's this speed bump at weekends...

Fann Linn

Revolut transferred for me from Saturday and in my Irish bank a/c today.

Jim2007

dulpit wrote: »

Hey,

I've been waiting on a payment to process since Friday afternoon, it missed the sepa deadline so will be processed next business day, which is Tuesday. It got me wondering why these transfers don't process over weekend? I would have assumed that these transfers are automatic anyway, seems strange in this day and age that there's this speed bump at weekends...

And when would you like us to maintain the systems? During the working week?

3DataModem

dulpit wrote: »

Hey,

I've been waiting on a payment to process since Friday afternoon, it missed the sepa deadline so will be processed next business day, which is Tuesday. It got me wondering why these transfers don't process over weekend? I would have assumed that these transfers are automatic anyway, seems strange in this day and age that there's this speed bump at weekends...

Not many banking systems do interbank transfers 24/7. UK pretty much the only one.

skippy2

The Banks get to play with your money for two or three days and you dont.

Simple really the banks make money on your money the longer they have it. Believe nothing else

dulpit

Jim2007 wrote: »

And when would you like us to maintain the systems? During the working week?

I don't get the tone here, but if that's the reason why weekend transfers are not possible, that's cool. I was just curious is all...

Dardania

There is work afoot to improve the situation but to my knowledge no Irish banks participate in it:

https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-credit-transfer

dotsman

skippy2 wrote: »

The Banks get to play with your money for two or three days and you dont.

Simple really the banks make money on your money the longer they have it. Believe nothing else

That's a whole load of crap. It makes no difference to the bank's balance sheet. Just as much money coming in as going out.

The reason behind this is the various bank's attitude to IT. Banks were early adopters of IT back in the 70's. At the time, the focus was on directly automating manual tasks. This resulted in huge numbers of PL/1 and COBOL jobs doing "end-of-day" batch processing for transfers, interest calculations, payments, reporting etc. The manual, paper-based system for funds transfer would involve several manual entries and pieces of paper being sent in the post between the sender's bank branch and the receiver's bank branch. Obviously, all this would only ever be done on a normal working day and, prior to internet banking, would only ever be required on a normal working day.

Unfortunately, banks never maintained their IT systems or people. Newer systems were built on top of the older ones instead of replacing them, "strategy" was a poster on the wall, fear and politics dominated decision-making and, today, most banks don't even have an IT capability, having outsourced and off-shored the key roles. As a result, nobody knows how to change these systems and is far too afraid to touch them. To give you an example, Bank of Ireland are currently flushing over a billion euro down the toilet trying to upgrade some of their systems to 90's technology but the project is doomed, and has been since day 1, because nobody in Bank of Ireland actually knows what they are doing.

JustJoe7240

Jim2007 wrote: »

And when would you like us to maintain the systems? During the working week?

You’re doing a great job Jim

Amirani

skippy2 wrote: »

The Banks get to play with your money for two or three days and you dont.

Simple really the banks make money on your money the longer they have it. Believe nothing else

Actually costs the banks to hold deposits at the moment due to the ECB rates. Not sure knowing that will have any impact on your worldview though!

Qupamyav

cause they have to be checked by bank worker that has weekend??? that is quite logical

coylemj

Qupamyav wrote: »

cause they have to be checked by bank worker that has weekend??? that is quite logical

What's 'logical' to me is that you've registered on boards and now you're splashing meaningless posts around the place so you get your post count to the point where you can post a link to a commercial website.

Cape Clear

dotsman wrote: »

That's a whole load of crap. It makes no difference to the bank's balance sheet. Just as much money coming in as going out.

The reason behind this is the various bank's attitude to IT. Banks were early adopters of IT back in the 70's. At the time, the focus was on directly automating manual tasks. This resulted in huge numbers of PL/1 and COBOL jobs doing "end-of-day" batch processing for transfers, interest calculations, payments, reporting etc. The manual, paper-based system for funds transfer would involve several manual entries and pieces of paper being sent in the post between the sender's bank branch and the receiver's bank branch. Obviously, all this would only ever be done on a normal working day and, prior to internet banking, would only ever be required on a normal working day.

Unfortunately, banks never maintained their IT systems or people. Newer systems were built on top of the older ones instead of replacing them, "strategy" was a poster on the wall, fear and politics dominated decision-making and, today, most banks don't even have an IT capability, having outsourced and off-shored the key roles. As a result, nobody knows how to change these systems and is far too afraid to touch them. To give you an example, Bank of Ireland are currently flushing over a billion euro down the toilet trying to upgrade some of their systems to 90's technology but the project is doomed, and has been since day 1, because nobody in Bank of Ireland actually knows what they are doing.

Good summary in the last paragraph. Banking is well over due a revolution the question is how would this happen without the whole system going up in flames.

KikiLaRue

Jim2007 wrote: »

And when would you like us to maintain the systems? During the working week?

B0llocks.

Other countries manage just fine. You don't need 48 hours every week to maintain your systems.

Jim2007

skippy2 wrote: »

The Banks get to play with your money for two or three days and you dont.

Simple really the banks make money on your money the longer they have it. Believe nothing else

Except that you are wrong! Your about 20+ years out of date.

Jim2007

3DataModem wrote: »

Not many banking systems do interbank transfers 24/7. UK pretty much the only one.

True and it comes at a price as we have seen with their inability to keep their system up.

KikiLaRue

Jim2007 wrote: »

Except that you are wrong! Your about 20+ years out of date.

It's not him that's 20 years behind, it's banks.

Jim2007

KikiLaRue wrote: »

B0llocks.

Other countries manage just fine. You don't need 48 hours every week to maintain your systems.

Given that I actually do incident management for banks in other countries I have a pretty good idea of what is going on. And in fact I can tell you that very often 48 hours is not even enough.

Jim2007

KikiLaRue wrote: »

It's not him that's 20 years behind, it's banks.

When you actually understand the point that was being discussed get back to us.

Jim2007

JustJoe7240 wrote: »

You’re doing a great job Jim

No, we're doing a terrible job and it will only get worse. We have turned banking into a commodity industry and are now on a race to the bottom. And the customer never wins in a commodity industry.

KikiLaRue

Jim2007 wrote: »

When you actually understand the point that was being discussed get back to us.

This is the disdain banks tend to have for customers, and it's why you're going to become less and less relevant as time goes on.

Irish banks are investing heavily in trying to modernise at the moment but it's a challenge because they failed to do so for so long that their legacy systems are ill equipped.

That's why they are paying management consultancies millions to come in and try and fix it.