Newsgroups: uk.finance
From: David Marsh 
Subject: Re: Online banking inflexibility
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Restrict: no-external-archive
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Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:22:26 +0000

[Interleaved quotes: read to end for all comments]
begin quote from Stephen Burke in uk.finance 
 about: Re: Online banking inflexibility 

> "David Marsh"  wrote in message
> news:slrnc0thol.580.see-sig@pepper.viewport.lan...
>> I know, but they provide me with banking services so that's bank-like
>> enough for me. ;-)
> 
> Well, OK, except that you're now complaining that they *aren't* bank like
> enough!

Well, I have a possibly naive expectation that if they attempt to talk the
talk, they should walk the walk ;-)


>> It now turns out upon further enquiry with the online banking staff that
>> their credit card division refuses to take payment by standing order, full
>> stop, which is pathetic.
> 
> How can they tell? Standing order is a push, not a pull, if money appears in
> the account how do they know how it got there?

Well, if they don't know how it got there it won't go towards paying off
_my_ credit card bill, that's for sure! ;-/ 

But since standing orders can include a payment reference that should cover
that problem. However, it seems that the main BS part of Nationwide just 
will not let me set up a standing order to pay into their credit card 
division's payment account: when I tried, the "standing order" forms I filled
in (real, explicitly clear paper forms in-branch) appeared in online banking 
as (manually-performed) "bill payment arrangements" rather than as
standing orders, and when queried, they simply required 
"Sorry, can't do that".  :-(

I suppose the question is: has anybody else been able to make payments to
their credit card bill by standing order? It may well be quite common with
all banks: after all, if _we_ get to choose the day we make an automated 
payment, it means _they_ can't delay automated DD payments for as long as 
possible in order to charge as much interest as possible in the meantime..


David.