Why are bank transfers and credit card payments not processed during weekends?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot04/Sep/20121 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 04/Sep/2012
Each bank operates and settles transfers as per their own schedule. You should be able to ask your bank how settlements are handled that are posted on Friday. Many banks will have a cut-off time, so anything say posted after say 10 AM on Friday does not get processed till Monday.
Float (or the ability to keep money over night, which has a zero cost of funds associated to it), would always certainly be a factor. If you regular Relationship Manager is not able to let you know of the processing time, I would suggest you talk to someone in Transaction Banking and ask them.
Depending on the transfers, the amount could be settled in minutes (for Funds Transfers, or what is called Intra-Bank Funds Transfer), IBFT (Inter Bank Funds Transfer) can take a few hours to a few days, depending on how the settlement is done, and then there is SWIFT etc.
Most banks will not process on Weekends, in fact now that I think of it, I do not know of a single bank that processes 3rd party payments on weekends (SWIFT being excluded). Nothing stops them from doing so, they just opt not to.
Float (or the ability to keep money over night, which has a zero cost of funds associated to it), would always certainly be a factor. If you regular Relationship Manager is not able to let you know of the processing time, I would suggest you talk to someone in Transaction Banking and ask them.
Depending on the transfers, the amount could be settled in minutes (for Funds Transfers, or what is called Intra-Bank Funds Transfer), IBFT (Inter Bank Funds Transfer) can take a few hours to a few days, depending on how the settlement is done, and then there is SWIFT etc.
Most banks will not process on Weekends, in fact now that I think of it, I do not know of a single bank that processes 3rd party payments on weekends (SWIFT being excluded). Nothing stops them from doing so, they just opt not to.