I’m buying a flat and I’ve put all the money I have for that in two interest-bearing pots.
On Friday, my solicitor tells me that we’ll be ready to exchange today (Monday) and that he needs the 10% deposit transferred into their bank account before that can happen. So I transfer the money from the pot into my main account. But all I see is a message saying that it’ll arrive in three days time.
“Ok,” I think, “that’s fine. Obviously it takes time to get money back from the savings company. Next business day is good. I’ll just transfer the money over when it arrives.”
But today, I have a closer look and when I click on the (still-pending) transaction, it gives more detail - the money is due by 17:00 today. Now, I don’t know how well you know solicitors, but the change of getting one of them working after 5pm is tiny. And you need two of them to do that in order to exchange on a property sale.
So it looks like I’ll be exchanging tomorrow, rather than today. I don’t think that will affect things. I expect we can keep with the same completion date.
I guess this is really more of a Public Service Announcement. If you want to get money out of an interest-bearing pot, then it might not arrive quite as quickly as you expect. When they say “next business day”, they actually mean “end of the next business day”.
If you have enough notice, then consider taking the money out a day earlier.
My (much smaller) withdrawal arrived at 15.53pm today - maybe it comes at the same time as when you made the withdrawal?
Important: make sure that your 10% deposit doesn’t exceed your daily £10k transfers allowance (which it might well do) otherwise you will also have to wait for COps to raise the limit for you, further delaying things. It can only happen on the same day so you can’t ask them today to raise it tomorrow.
That’s the way that savings pots work - the fact of next day withdrawals is highlighted in the sign up flow from memory - so there’s little excuse for others with a savings pot not to be aware of the terms and conditions associated with them. Certainly, for those on the forum, it’s been raised often enough over the years.
An alarming number of people seem to miss this and don’t realise until they try to withdraw. I suppose it’s people being used to having an easy access savings account alongside their current account with traditional banks, and transfers between those are usually instant.
As far as I know, there is only one Bank that offers instant cross-bank transfers to and from an easy access savings account.
I think it’s fair to point out though the potential timing of transfer might not be to people’s expectations.
I made a withdrawal from a pot on Friday, which arrived Monday at 13:25.
Couldn’t tell you if that’s the exact time on Friday I withdrew the money, but part of me anticipated the money would be in my account in the early hours of the morning - much like how direct debits and BACS payments are made at consistent times.
Absolutely agree with this and despite knowing about the inconsistencies and being able to allow for them I find it very frustrating. Where money is concerned we need certainty, and to me “funds available next business day” should mean by start of normal business hours - not at some random time before close of business.
I think this is yet another example of how Monzo doesn’t behave like a “grown up” organisation. I’m a big fan and have personal, joint and business accounts with them, but I’d like to see some time spent getting the fundamentals right rather than messing about selling shiny cards.
Probably an issue with outsourcing this stuff to third parties. Monzo could spot you the money immediately though if they wanted to (why haven’t they?), because they know you’re good for it, and that the transfer is coming. Like they do with your salary.
This would get me into the mindset of considering a savings pot inside Monzo too. Assuming the rates become competitive again.
The fact my Marcus withdrawals are just a few minutes, and my withdrawals from an as yet unreleased savings account are as instant as the push notifications you get from Monzo when you buy something are huge selling points for me. The fact that both are market leading is just a bonus. I could forego 0.05 or 0.1% for the advantage of being as instant as instant gets, and being in the same app as everything else I need. If it’s plus only, that’s a bigger incentive to keep me tied into plus too.
Pay for it? Why? This is pretty basic stuff, knowing when a scheduled payment from another bank account is going to arrive. Monzo should not need to loan you the money until it arrives - they should sort out the scheduling.
To be clear, I’m not worried about the money not arriving until the next working day. I think that’s perfectly clear and it’s what I was expecting. What took me by surprise was that it could be as late as the end of the next business day.
For some reason, I got it in my head that the transfer would take place overnight and the money would be in my account early on the next business day.
Yes, the money is with a third party. But it’s certainly possible to sort out scheduling those transfers.
It’s 13 years since I worked on outsourced savings accounts and it was possible to offer customers certainty then, so there’s absolutely no reason it can’t be done now if the effort is made.
Unless Monzo are will to apply the same get paid early scheme to savings withdrawals as they do they BACS payments, this is something for the partner banks to fix. It’s just an old fashioned way of doing things, and Monzo would need a more modern partner such as Marcus or Atom.
Many old school easy access savings accounts I’ve used over the years process withdrawals at the close of the following business day (though it was clearly worded, so i knew when to expect it). Some would even only process withdrawals via BACS too, so took even longer.
Is there any reason why the withdrawal of money from a savings pot could fail? With a BACS payment they can ‘gurantee’ the money will arrive if it’s cleared Day X of Y (and so you get paid early).
I wonder if somewhere there’s some mechanism that could prompt the withdrawals to fail, and Monzo left with the liability if something goes wrong?
But I can’t think of any good reason (beyond a catastrophic failure) where the withdrawal could fail.
It’s interesting eitherway that BACS payments can be fronted, but these aren’t.
I think it would be better if the text below the withdrawal amount controls stated two working days to ensure people don’t end up with scenarios such as the OP described.
