Sterling Cheque Clearance

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Cars123

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Hi, I have just lodged a sterling cheque to my PTSB account but they are telling me it will take up to 21 days to clear! How in God's name could it take a month to clear a sterling cheque? I'm waiting on a supervisor to come back to me but is this right?
 
They have to send it ti your branch and they process it from there. It should clear in about 2 weeks but that's the way things are with cheques now. Most people will do an online transfer.
 
There is no pan UK&I cheque clearing and the banks are not going to invest in that given the decline in cheque volumes. PTSB branch will send the item to their International Clearing Dept. That dept will send the item (via post or courier) to the UK bank and seek a pay/no-pay decision. The UK bank will have to write back to PTSB with their answer and then and only then will the item be marked cleared or unpaid. It is what it is. Normally done faster then 3 weeks but PTSB are covering themselves by putting down 3 weeks although Easter is likely to add some time to the process
 
Cars123 said:
Hi, I have just lodged a sterling cheque to my PTSB account but they are telling me it will take up to 21 days to clear! How in God's name could it take a month to clear a sterling cheque? I'm waiting on a supervisor to come back to me but is this right?
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Yes it correct. A cheque has to be physically presented for payment. Meaning that at some point in the process your bank will have to deliver up the cheque to the other bank, obviously they are not going to do this on a one by one basis, so they are batched and processed centrally by the banks. It all takes time.

This is why cheques are on the way out.
 
There's an important lesson for all of us here - avoid accepting foreign cheques as very best you can :)

If you do have reason to receive GBP£ cheques from time to time, perhaps consider opening a GBP£ account up North.. then when your cheque arrives, post it to your Northern Ireland bank complete with a lodgement slip and a nice polite note asking for it to be lodged.
 
In the UK most banking apps on your phone, have a feature where you can lodge a cheque up to £500, by taking a pic of the cheque front and back with the banking app on your phone. The cheque is cleared and in your account in 24 hours, and the physical cheque never goes to the bank. You are told by the app to write LODGED on the back of the cheque and keep it just in case.
Also I notice if I pay my Irish Vodafone Bill, or Bord Gais, or ESB bill from my UK bank account, before 2pm, its credited to the Vodafone, Bord Gais or ESB bill account on the same day, whereas if I try to pay any of these bills from my Irish AIB account, it takes 2 days at least. Just a good example how to Irish banks once again, are holding our cleared funds for their own use, for as long as they can, before they let us have the benefit of our own money.
 
Struggling2019 said:
The cheque is cleared and in your account in 24 hours, and the physical cheque never goes to the bank
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Yes, the UK banks have an electronic cheque clearing system since the end of 2017. If you're not one of the banks in that system the cheque has to be physically presented. It's not something Irish banks have control over.

Struggling2019 said:
if I try to pay any of these bills from my Irish AIB account, it takes 2 days at least.
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That sounds like a problem with the utility companies. If you make a payment from AIB to an ROI account before 2pm, it would normally be received by the recipient the same day. Even after 2pm, they receive cleared funds the next business day.

Are you comparing a card payment Vs a bank transfer?
 
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