Mostly as a way of moderating my expenditure on eBay, I like to keep a modest running balance on my PayPal account. I tend to either keep the proceeds of what I sell on hand or top it up every now and again from my bank account.
So the Monday before last I sent money from my bank account to my PayPal account. The money arrived the subsequent Monday at some point in the afternoon.
I’ve never really understood why it takes 5 to 7 days for funds to whizz from my bank account to my PayPal account. Even back in the deep darks days of 2004 (when I dimly recall the feature launching, but don’t quote me on that), it was too long. But in the age of super fast payments and the like, I have no idea why it shouldn’t be instantaneous or at least within the hour during the day.
Has anyone got any idea why it does take so long?
8 Responses
Consider all the various amounts awaiting transfer from Paypal to Bank accounts and then consider the interest on that amount.
There is no way they want to speed it up!
Why would you want to add funds from a bank account to your Paypal account? as any purchases can be covered by adding & confirming a bank card
Because Faster Payments are not available to corporate customers, only personal ones. i.e. your bank will offer it to you, but the banks will not (yet) offer it to other businesses such as PayPal. Or something like that.
Surely for most Private Sellers and indeed Trader Sellers on ebay they sell more on ebay than they usually buy. So in most cases they will sell items and the proceeds are added to their Paypal Account. Then periodically they transfer excess funds to their “Ordinary” Bank Account.
Those who might go the other way are those who are generally buyers on ebay rather than sellers. So I take it that Dan Wilson is in that category-selling a bit but buying a great deal more.
In the 1970’s I was Works Accountant for a particular Company a part of a large Multi National Group. I often had to transfer spare monies to our UK Head Office or if I needed some more money I would phone London and Head Office would transfer the monies to our Divisional Bank Account.
There were two types of transaction. The Telegraphic Transfer that was usually completed the same day and the Postal Transfer that took a couple of days.
This was in the 1970’s when Computers were considerably slower and less able than today(thinking about northumbrian I would possibly describe them as Steam Powererd Computers). Yet I could phone London for say £100k and it would be in our Bank Account the same day. Indeed when it arrived in our Bank in Penzance(before anybody asks it was a differant Bank to our Head Office-not just 2 Accounts within the same Bank)I would get a phone call from the Bank to confirm that the monies had arrived in our Bank Account.
So I would be fascinated to learn why with the great advances in so many ways does Bank Transfers take longer(much longer) than they did in the 1970’s.
Well I see there are the usual technical and blinding replies to your posting. However I would rather sum the matter up by saying that as the noose gradually tightens around the financial institutions they quirm more than ever and spend much time and your money in finding ways to screw you. Less and less of their methods are now regarded as acceptable so they look on. Gone are the days of the ‘banking profession’ and their ‘clients’ – trouble is I am old enough to remember, and I am afraid it shows!
It is the same thing with debit and credit cards, they can take the money or at least earmark it as taken instantly but if you want a refund back onto the card it takes 3 working days. I was not aware that servers required days off !
On the other hand its a bank, why are you in the least bit surprised ?