Lodging a cheque outside of banking hours

fergoc

Hi,

I received a letter today from my local branch asking me to stop using the bank's letterbox for making deposits to my account. This is despite being told to do this about 2 years ago by a member of staff at this same branch when I asked about making a deposit after hours. I cannot easily make it to the bank during their limited opening hours. I am a business and personal customer and all I am doing is "transferring" money from business a/c to personal a/c. I won't pay for Business Online as EUR15 is a crazy price for a company like mine which only writes 1-2 cheques a month...mainly to myself!

To me there are 2 simple solutions and ideally both would be provided:

1. provide a free version of Business Online for customer like me who are only making 1-2 transfers a month and would like to check my balance without having to call the branch....this is a no-brainer and ignoring the upside for the customer, it would save the bank money!
2. Enable the ATMs to accept deposits. This would benefit all customers and would mean that the customer would do the transaction encoding instead of a staff member...again saving money for the bank and also freeing up the need for people to do this in-branch.

Any thoughts or suggesting from a BOI staff member would be appreciated.

Bank of Ireland: Graham

Hi fergoc,

Thanks for getting in touch. If the cheques you're writing are mainly wages cheques to yourself, you could set up a standing order to transfer to your personal current account. A standing order on a business account costs €3.43 to set up, however, it's just €0.15 per payment, which is less than the cost of a cheque.

Alternatively, we have some self-service lobbies with lodgement machines that have extended opening hours. For example, the lobby at the O'Connell Street branch in Dublin is open from 08:00-18:30 Monday to Friday and 09:00-17:00 on weekends and bank holidays.

We also have an external Lodgement ATM located at Stillorgan Shopping Centre, Dublin. The facility allows you to lodge cash and cheques on a 24/7 basis, to help service customer needs outside normal business hours.

Thanks for your suggestions and feedback,
Graham

fergoc

Hi Graham,

Appreciate the idea of a standing order but some of my payments are for expenses and so are not suitable for a standing order.

Unfortunately, I don't live in the dublin area so using the facilities you have suggested is not feasible but it would be nice to see this extended to other branches particularly when the machine is within a lobby...unfortunately a rarity in this country!

Regards,

fergoc

Bank of Ireland: Graham

If you don't mind telling us which part of the country you're in, or want to send us a PM, we'd be happy to see if there's a self-service lobby in your area.

Thanks,
Graham

fergoc

Hi Graham,

I am close to Kildare town so anywhere in Kildare, Newbridge or Naas would be convenient. Dublin, while not a long drive, seems a bit far just to lodge a check!

Regards,

fergoc

Bank of Ireland: Graham

Hi fergoc,

We currently don't have any out of hours lodgement facilities in the Kildare area. We'll keep you updated of any upcoming changes in this.

Thanks,
Graham