Dumb questions, but...

[j4]

... I know it's possible to do a transfer of money from one bank account to another if you have the other person's sortcode & a/c number. Is the bank likely to charge for this? Does the amount that you're transferring have to be over a certain amount? Can you do it from any bank to any other bank, or is it only if you both bank with the same people?

TIA for advice. I know I probably should just phone the bank to ask stuff like this but I don't really want to sit on hold for half an hour... :-/

Comments

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

I can transfer any amount from my (Barclays) current account to any sort code/account number combination in the country via their online service or their phone-banking service; it's free to me, as a personal customer, and free to the recipient, because it works a bit like remotely depositing a cheque into their account but without the paperwork. (It takes the usual cheque clearing cycle to clear, though; three days, unless it's to a Barclays account [same day] or cross-Border [four days].)

I've never done this in person, and suspect they'd prefer I did it online or by phone; their tariff only mentions a CHAPS (same-day) transfer, which is £20.

As regards other banks, the market in this country is sufficiently cut-throat that I'd be very surprised if any other bank differed more than slightly from Barclays. (Recent probably-irrelevant experience: I wanted to move some money from my ISA, which is with HSBC, into my current account; I have no other HSBC accounts, and the ISA doesn't qualify for phone banking, so the only options I had were to withdraw in cash, or to pay £10 to have them write a draft. I had a chat with a helpful lady, and gently pointed out (in not quite as many words) that I could ask to open an HSBC current account to do the transfer dance - thereby consuming lots of their time at negligible profit to them - and she suggested they could issue a cheque via their branch payments account and waive the fee seeing as it was a one-off. Of course, this still meant I had to go to my bank and pay the cheque in myself, but it's better than carrying the cash around.)