My bank recently alerted me about the extended period of bank holidays with Easter this year.
Easter this year goes from Friday the 22nd of April through to Monday the 25th of April. Banks have for as long as I remember always added an extra bank holiday at the end of Easter to include the Tuesday. With Anzac day falling on the 25th of April, which is already a public holiday, the bank holiday for Easter is now on Wednesday.
That now means banks will be closed for nearly a week. I actually find that quite amazing.
Why this is important is for anyone doing a BPay transaction (and other bank transactions) if you make a payment or transfer after close of business on Thursday the 21st, your transaction may not be made until nearly one week later on the following Thursday or Thursday night.
I've been caught by this before with BPay and a credit card payment. I missed the due date for payment (if I recall correctly I'd returned from holidays). I thought that was OK as there wasn't much on the account and I'd incur a small interest fee. I paid on the Friday night before the period for late payment. However what I didn't take into account was the following Monday was a public holiday and so even though I thought I'd paid in time, I didn't realise since the Monday was a bank holiday the payment wouldn't be processed until the following Tuesday which meant I'd paid late and incurred a $35 fee.
With a large period of consecutive bank holidays there is a high chance of tens of thousands of Australians being charged with additional bank fees simply because of the way the banking system works.
I once worked out BPay could be making millions of dollars, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars simply by holding over money that has already been paid but not forwarded to the recipient because of non-bank days. BPay processes billions of dollars of transactions a year. With two of every seven days being a non-bank day, plus the public holidays and the additional bank holidays, that's a lot of money sitting in BPay's account making money. I have no problem with BPay making money, but not when it is at the expense of consumers. We can purchase using bank services any day of the week and the money goes effectively immediately. But when we make a payment the money is taken from our accounts immediately, but that money often doesn't get paid to the recipient that day or the next, or in the case of Easter this year, up to nearly a week later.
In this day and age of 24 hour banking it is time this area of banking was reviewed by government. It has certainly cost me money in the past and I'm sure it has cost Australians hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted bank fees and charges.
More recently I had another situation where a bank sat on the money, which I believe is for their own benefit. I have a Westpac Mastercard and had paid for another person using my credit card online and they were going to pay the money direct from their bank account to my credit card. I wanted the money cleared from the card as I was going on holiday. The person went into a Westpac branch on the Friday and made a direct withdrawal form their Westpac account and paid my Westpac Mastercard.. I would have expected since it was all done internally with Westpac the money would have been received immediately. The money did not appear on the credit card until the Monday. Had this been the coming Easter period, I wouldn't even be sure now that paying a credit card direct over the counter on the due date, means the credit card has been paid on time or not.
Everyone complains loudly about the excessive banks fees, but I think if you make a payment on a given date it should now be accepted as being paid on that date and not days later. The banks already do this on purchases that come through days after the purchase, so there is no reason it shouldn't apply equally to payments.
So this Easter if you have a bill or an amount that needs to be paid around that time, make sure you pay early.
Kelvin Eldridge
http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/
Easter this year goes from Friday the 22nd of April through to Monday the 25th of April. Banks have for as long as I remember always added an extra bank holiday at the end of Easter to include the Tuesday. With Anzac day falling on the 25th of April, which is already a public holiday, the bank holiday for Easter is now on Wednesday.
That now means banks will be closed for nearly a week. I actually find that quite amazing.
Why this is important is for anyone doing a BPay transaction (and other bank transactions) if you make a payment or transfer after close of business on Thursday the 21st, your transaction may not be made until nearly one week later on the following Thursday or Thursday night.
I've been caught by this before with BPay and a credit card payment. I missed the due date for payment (if I recall correctly I'd returned from holidays). I thought that was OK as there wasn't much on the account and I'd incur a small interest fee. I paid on the Friday night before the period for late payment. However what I didn't take into account was the following Monday was a public holiday and so even though I thought I'd paid in time, I didn't realise since the Monday was a bank holiday the payment wouldn't be processed until the following Tuesday which meant I'd paid late and incurred a $35 fee.
With a large period of consecutive bank holidays there is a high chance of tens of thousands of Australians being charged with additional bank fees simply because of the way the banking system works.
I once worked out BPay could be making millions of dollars, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars simply by holding over money that has already been paid but not forwarded to the recipient because of non-bank days. BPay processes billions of dollars of transactions a year. With two of every seven days being a non-bank day, plus the public holidays and the additional bank holidays, that's a lot of money sitting in BPay's account making money. I have no problem with BPay making money, but not when it is at the expense of consumers. We can purchase using bank services any day of the week and the money goes effectively immediately. But when we make a payment the money is taken from our accounts immediately, but that money often doesn't get paid to the recipient that day or the next, or in the case of Easter this year, up to nearly a week later.
In this day and age of 24 hour banking it is time this area of banking was reviewed by government. It has certainly cost me money in the past and I'm sure it has cost Australians hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted bank fees and charges.
More recently I had another situation where a bank sat on the money, which I believe is for their own benefit. I have a Westpac Mastercard and had paid for another person using my credit card online and they were going to pay the money direct from their bank account to my credit card. I wanted the money cleared from the card as I was going on holiday. The person went into a Westpac branch on the Friday and made a direct withdrawal form their Westpac account and paid my Westpac Mastercard.. I would have expected since it was all done internally with Westpac the money would have been received immediately. The money did not appear on the credit card until the Monday. Had this been the coming Easter period, I wouldn't even be sure now that paying a credit card direct over the counter on the due date, means the credit card has been paid on time or not.
Everyone complains loudly about the excessive banks fees, but I think if you make a payment on a given date it should now be accepted as being paid on that date and not days later. The banks already do this on purchases that come through days after the purchase, so there is no reason it shouldn't apply equally to payments.
So this Easter if you have a bill or an amount that needs to be paid around that time, make sure you pay early.
Kelvin Eldridge
http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/
Dear Kevin, I think I have found an even better 'public holiday scam'. My mortgage interest has been on a steady decline due to some hard work and thrifty living. Yet after Easter, I logged in to my bank and saw that they had added an extra $500 to the interest bill. Due to the holiday, they calculated my interest on a 36 day cycle, because they were closed rather than a 28 day cycle. Being a DINK(y) household, this did not cripple us, but still pretty awful none the less. When I asked if the next interest payment would be less $500, I was informed that no it wouldnt!
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