Cheque Clearing Times

scojones

I lodged a cheque into my BOI account in the BOI in tralee. My account was opened in Shannon, Co. Clare. And the cheque was from an account with AIB in Ennis. The cheque was cleared straight away, as in i walked outside and withdrew the cash. A friend of mine lodged the same cheque (both our cheques were from Clare VEC office) into his AIB account which was opened in Shannon as well. Only thing is he was told it'd take a couple of days to clear. How the hell is this possible?

Ph3n0m

Bank of Ireland do allow you to draw on a cheque even though it actually has not cleared.

And some banks dont allow you to withdraw funds against cheques that have just been lodged

All cheques, when drawn against an account held in a different bank take 5 working days to clear

scojones

Ah cool, I wasn't aware BOI did that. Cheers Ph3n0m.

Ph3n0m

just be aware that was what I was told when I could withdraw on a large cheque that I lodged, even though it didnt clear until the following week

The Brigadier

If your account is in good standing you will often be given access to the value of the cheque before it clears...

If you have a cheque bounce in your account you normally lose this!

pickarooney

What exactly happens during the 5 days a cheque is clearing?

scojones

I'm not sure. but the cheque clearing times are a joke. I don't see why they should take so long. A cheque should be cleared instantaneously, providing the money is in the account.

s_gr

I have bank daft that my name & my girlfriends on it.We do not have a joint account and BOI will not lodge it to my account as it has two names on it. What can i do apart from opening a joint account.???

pickarooney

Is the right account number on it? If the bank won't accept it you just have to ask the issuer to make a new one with the right details.

The_Conductor

s_gr wrote:

I have bank daft that my name & my girlfriends on it.We do not have a joint account and BOI will not lodge it to my account as it has two names on it. What can i do apart from opening a joint account.???

Have her endorse (sign) the back of the cheque.
Should work fine.
BOI are normally quite good with things like that- but are gone a little too cautious especially in respect of possible money laundering.

S.

nlgbbbblth

sjones wrote:

I'm not sure. but the cheque clearing times are a joke. I don't see why they should take so long. A cheque should be cleared instantaneously, providing the money is in the account.

I disagree


say you bank with UB and you lodge AIB/non UB cheque on a Monday

Monday - cheque lodged. Funds cannot be drawn
Tuesday - cheque goes through Clearing. Funds cannot be drawn
Wednesday - funds cleared for value and can be drawn. cheque arrives at AIB
Thursday - a) cheque is either paid or b) returned unpaid by AIB via post
Friday - if b) then cheque is received back by UB and is debited from your account,
depending on the postal system this may not happen til the following Monday or even Tuesday

so guys a cheque cleared for value is not the same as one cleared for fate

to be fully sure you need to wait about a week.
while 99.5% of cheques are honoured the Banks generally give the customers the benefit of the doubt - hence they get value when the Bank gets value

Zaph0d

I asked my AIB branch if there was anything they could do about the length of time it took to clear cheques. They set something on my account so that all cheques are credited when lodged, even cheques drawn on foreign banks. This is eight years ago.

It's very hard to believe that the clearing delay is preserved for any purpose other than to profit the banks with the interest on this cash in transit. Even electronic transfers between Irish banks are subject to a clearing delay, so you can't blame the postal system.

A clearing system that worked in seconds rather than days would not be rocket science to design and would most likely cost far less than a manual clearing system to operate, thus paying for itself in a short time.

There is a strong disincentive for the banks to remove this delay which is just crude cartel behaviour. At any given time, Irish banks have at least a billion on free loan from cash in transit. (source:http://www.ibf.ie/pdfs/ff9.pdf)

There is an analogy in mobile telecoms where the three network operators charge a huge interconnect fee to transfer calls to their customers originating from outside their networks. So now it costs five times more to call a mobile in Dublin than to call a landline in Perth.

These scams can't last forever and the answers will probably be legislative.

WexCan

I got an emergency tax refund from my last employer whose bank account was in AIB in Ballsbridge. My Bank of Ireland account is held in Gorey, County Wexford. I'm living in Dublin now, so I lodged the cheque in College Green BoI. The funds were transferred into my account within three days but I couldn't draw against them for another four days. hmmmm