Having fully switched to Monzo quite a while ago I haven’t used cheques that much, not that I used them much beforehand, except for paying the DVLA in Northern Ireland before they got with the times and started offering online services.
I found an old Nationwde cheque book this evening, this is one of the accounts that I fully switched to Monzo using the CASS. This made me a bit curious so I done some research and discovered the cheque redirection service, which looks, to me, like an unspoken fundamental rule of the CASS. Which appears to work in a similar manner (only in reverse) to the payment redirection process for when payments are redirected to your new account in the event that the old sort code and account number are given in error or you’ve just not updated someone.
If I wrote a cheque and it was deposited into an account, and it went through the clearing process, made it’s way to the NW clearing centre who would say (provided I haven’t misunderstood anything to do with the redirection service) this is an old customer of ours, who has since switched to Monzo, we will forward the cheque on to Monzo with their customers details and they will process the cheque under the rules.
Now as we know, Monzo, being with the times, don’t, and probably wont offer payments out of their accounts by cheque.
How would a cheque be treated if this scenario were to occur ?
I was tempted to try it, paying it in using the cheque imaging option on my obsolete HSBC app, but couldn’t be bothered with the hassle and the chequebook has since been incinerated so I will never get to try it out.
I’m sorry, I might be misinterpreteding this, but are you wondering what would happen if you paid a cheque into a closed bank account? I’m not convinced you could pay a cheque into an account that is closed, therefore you would just send the cheque to monzo to pay into your account.
I had a hard time explaining it myself, heres a hypothetical scenario
1st January I write a cheque from my Nationwide account for say £200 for an online purchase that doesn’t accept card or PayPal or bank transfer.
2nd January I initiate the current account switch process instructing Monzo to switch my Nationwide current account to them.
3rd-8th January , the process is moving, and all payments are moving over etc.
9th January my account switch to Monzo finishes and my old NW account closes
10th January, the seller deposits the cheque into their account, bearing in mind the account that the cheque came from has now closed.
12th January, NW receive the cheque at their clearing centre, under the rules of the switch service they pass the cheque on to Monzo for them to pay out
13th January Monzo receive the cheque
What do they do with it ?
Dates are purely hypothetical
I understand if I had have switched from Nationwide to Santander, NW would pass the cheque on to Santanders clearing centre and Santander would pay the cheque, provided funds are available etc.
How would Monzo handle such a situation ? I’m just curious to know
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Anarchist
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Does that happen? Or do NW just get the cash from your Monzo account?
Fair point, never considered that, thinking about it now it would be questionable whether one bank / building society could pay out a cheque issued by another. So that idea of the funds being transferred from the new account by the old bank/building society seems like a more plausible option.
Image Clearing System - Pay.UK seems quite clear that cheques drawn on Old Account will be honoured with funds from New Bank:
The Cheque Redirection Service, which is owned and operated by the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company, is part of (the current account switching service) .
It works by ensuring that any cheques that you’ve issued on your old account, but which get paid in after your old account has closed, will be redirected to your new bank to be paid. This will happen even if you accidentally use your old chequebook after the switch date.
It doesn’t go into the mechanics but I imagine there’s a person at Monzo spending maybe half an hour a week dealing with these?
I’d be interested to know if this works too as I need to write a cheque to DVLA (they don’t accept online payments for all aspects). The only other option was to get a postal order.
There we are, question answered, was always under the impression at first that the cheque would be physically transferred due to the nature of cheques etc but now we know.
Yeah I’d agree that the amount of time this happens is relatively low. I’d hazard a guess and say that Monzo customers are relatively tech savvy, some more so than others and some less, I would imagine that cheques probably wouldn’t be used as much even when using a legacy bank. So its probably few and far between.
Yeah I noticed that both the DVLA and the DVA in NI only appear to accept online payments for car licence renewal. If you hold, or want a licence to drive a lorry, bus, and possibly a taxi, it looks like it will be a bit of a hassle going down them routes.
The cheque redirection scheme only applies if the bank you switch to also issues cheques. As Monzo does not issue cheques, we do not participate in the scheme; any cheques written against your old account are likely to bounce.
The DVLA will accept most applications (generally, those for which you do not need to attach paper evidence) online these days, for which you can pay by debit card.