Two dumb things about banks.

[Garth Vader]

Well goodie for you, some other people still have situations where it's more convenient to write a cheque.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
Well goodie for you, some other people still have situations where it's more convenient to write a cheque.

Then they should get in the 21st century.

Why do you hate the environment?

[onodera]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
An even dumber thing is that Internet transfers between two banks only take place during business hours, despite that no human action is involved at the bank. So if I transfer money from my own bank to my wife's VISA card account on a saturday, none of us will have access to the money until monday. And the bank keeps the interest for the time my money is lost in cyberspace.

1. Human action might be still involved. For example, someone has to digitally sign the outgoing payment bundle in your bank. Or STP might not recognise the name in the other bank, so a human will have to process the payment. Or the bank cannot legally process your payment if it's not a working day. Here, for example, interbank processing centres do no accept payments on weekends.
2. It does not apply in your case, but EOD procedures can also affect the speed of processing. Every night most banking systems spend a lot of time calculating stuff like interest and balance sweeps. They vannot do anything else. I've heard my colleague talk about a system that didn't have an explicit EOD process, but I haven't seen it myself.
3. I don't know about your country, but here in Russia no interest will be lost. When the business day is closed on Friday night, it is legally Monday already, so the interest is accrued for three days, and you technically send your money on Monday.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Oh, and I guess this is where we see where Mr. Fun's friend of the working man ends... when it inconveniences him .

You got that right!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Thue
Get his account number and set up a bank transfer in my web bank.

When I go to "transfer funds" it will only let me do it between my checking and savings and not outside. I have Wachovia as my bank.

That, and it's easier to just write a check with the person's name than to ask for their account number.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Asher

Starting in November, at least 800 TD branches will serve customers 62 hours a week or more and be open at 8 a.m. Monday to Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Additionally, more than 900 branches will now be open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

[Thue]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


When I go to "transfer funds" it will only let me do it between my checking and savings and not outside. I have Wachovia as my bank.

That, and it's easier to just write a check with the person's name than to ask for their account number.

All banks in Denmark allow external transfers, as far as I know.

I can see that it is easier to write a check than write down an account number. But I find cashing in checks a pain (especially since my bank is web-only), so overall I prefer transfers. Also, checks are just a ridiculous joke from a security perspective.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'll give you a recent example: a bunch of us from work went to see a baseball game. One guy collected all the money and bought the tickets. Because the team wasn't exactly doing so good, they actually were selling the tickets half off from what the price was online. So he owed everyone $8. Now, he didn't have $80 in cash and if he did, they wouldn't be in $8 intervals, so it was much easier for him to write 10 checks rather than go to everyone and ask for their account numbers.

Regardless, he's at the same bank as I am and as I said, I don't think you can do transfers to other accounts (unless they are yours) with it.

[Thue]

In that case I would tell them to send me their account numbers via email, and then transfer the money when I got home.

It is possible that writing checks would be simpler in that specific case, depending on how much effort/transaction cost there is in caching them.
In my bank the cost of transferring money to an external account is 0.

In most cases money only flows one way, and then only one account number has to be distributed.
All this obviously relies on arranging everything over email, and that everybody has an email address and a web bank. Those preconditions are true in my social circles.

(As I said, I don't have a check book, so I don't have much choice in methods)

[Garth Vader]

Recently we got our underground sprinklers blown out before winter. They came and did it while we were at work, left the bill in the mailbox, we mail out a cheque. What's easier than that?

[snoopy369]

If a guy at work gave me a check for $8 I'd refuse it and ask for cash. Or just let him buy me a burger and a soda instead (and end up ahead ). The amount of effort it takes to deal with a check is not worth it.

[Thue]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
Recently we got our underground sprinklers blown out before winter. They came and did it while we were at work, left the bill in the mailbox, we mail out a cheque. What's easier than that?

They leave an account number, to which you transfer the money.

Steps for paying via check:
-Read bill
-Write check
-Put check in envelope
-write address on envelope
-pay for stamp and put on envelope
-Go to mailbox to post envelope
-hope check does not get lost in mail
-long procedure for clearing and caching check

Steps for paying via bank transfer
-Read bill
-(without leaving seat in front of computer): pay bill

[Asher]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
Recently we got our underground sprinklers blown out before winter. They came and did it while we were at work, left the bill in the mailbox, we mail out a cheque. What's easier than that?

Paying online?

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by Asher
Paying online?

Cause some business run out of a guys house has online bill payment.

I don't think we can transfer to other account numbers that easily here. I think we had to phone somebody at the bank to transfer between me and my wife, so that's usually easier to do with cash or a cheque as well.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Garth Vader


Cause some business run out of a guys house has online bill payment.

https://www.paypal.com