In a last-ditch effort to avoid incurring another exorbitant penalty fee at my bank for (once again) overstepping my overdraft limits I authorised a transfer from my Internet-based savings account with Egg to my current account. Problem solved? Er, no. it
seems that the payment will take three working days to clear, (ie five days if you count the weekend).
I asked Egg why they weren't compliant with the Faster Payments programme, the OFT-mandated scheme for delivering near real-time transfers for Internet-based payments that was introduced with great fanfare by the industry in May.
This is Egg's reply: "Like many other banks, Egg have chosen to phase in the faster payments service, offering inbound capability in time to meet the industry launch date. We will be working towards enhancing our services so that we will be able to send
transfers as Faster Payments too. Unfortunately, dates for this are not yet confirmed."
How convenient is that?
Magically, my account has been instantaneously debited for the full amount. The missing funds are presumably earning interest for Egg in some faster processing parallel universe known only to the banking industry.