From: "John" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Banks that allow cash/cheque depostis via ATMs?
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:06:36 -0000

>The banks' own rules decide when the money clears. Abbey like to earn
>an extra days interest over most other banks. I have also talked to
>Abbey about emptying the deposits at they end of the day - they can't
>be bothered to make the effort.

Learned only yesterday that Abbey ATM deposited cheques and cash take one
extra day to clear because envelopes are bundled and then sent to a central
handling depot, arriving up to 48 hours after the original cheque/cash
envelope was deposited in an ATM.  No envelopes are opened at branches.
Does seem a bit daft really when they could quite easily be handled by
branch staff, however, I suspect somebody did a time and effort study and
concluded that there would be economies of scale if you had one person
sitting in a depot opening envelopes all day compared to a plethora of staff
at branches.