Why does it take 6 working days for a cheque to clear?

There are numerous reasons.

Bank systems are not linked together to check for cleared funds.
Its paper... So the actual piece of paper has to get to the other bank.
Technical checks have to be done depending on the amount of chq.
The chq must be debited from the drawers account, some banks allow time to meet this db with a lodgement.
If its unpaid its got to be posted back to the bank that lodged it.
Under the Data Proctection Act, a touch of the button system would not be allowed.

In other words, its becoming a very outdated way of doing business and banks are not going to spend money on sorting this out. In fact chq's are being phased out over the next decade and in some countries like England its going to happen in 2017.

You should start to receive interest for the chq on the 2nd day of it being lodged. So don't feel to screwed over :-) Well as long as you lodged it to an account that gives interest.

And before some says, well in the US its instant.. we don't live there.....

Speedy44 wrote: »

I deposited a cheque into my bank yesterday and just called to ask them how long it will take to clear......... 6 fu*kin working days!!

What the hell is the deal with that. You can't tell me that in this wonderful electronic age that we live in when everything is done at the touch of a button that they can't verify if the funds are available or whatever they need to do to clear it.

Somebody is screwing somebody :mad:

Perhaps, if you used a concept from "this wonderful electronic age" instead of a 2000-year-old one, it might be faster.

There's a very good reason why cheques are being phased out. They are far too manual, expensive, slow and open to fraud. The sooner people stop using them the better. Unfortunately, instead, people continue to insist on using them and then complaining about them. In this case, it is very much the customer screwing themselves.