A banking bleat

I spent the first 25 years of my real working life (I don't count Saturday mornings stacking shelves in the supermarket or working there full-time pending starting the "real" job) with one of England's big banks.  You might think this would mean that I view the actions of banks in a more sympathetic light than most.  And perhaps I do - in some instances.  But there is one thing that has bugged me for quite a long time.  No, that's an understatement: there are lots of things that have bugged me.  But this post moan is about one thing in particular: the way bank's hang onto our money for days when they transfer funds from one account to another.  If I give my bank instructions to transfer money to another account, whether at a different branch of the same bank or a completely different bank, it takes two days for the money to be available to the recipient.  Two days!  And that in this age of instant electronic communication.  Now my gripe is not that neither I nor the recipient (or intended recipient) of that money don't have the use of it but that the bank does.  I know full well that if all those funds being transferred are added together they amount to millions of pounds at any one time.  And millions of pounds borrowed by the bank interest-free but lent or invested at a good return means substantial extra profits.

Having said that, I have been impressed for several years that my French bank doesn't hang on to money sent over by my English bank (and this would indicate that the receiving bank is the one hanging onto the money) but gets it into my account fast.  I had occasion to top up the French account this week having seen that the exchange rate had recovered slightly in my favour,  The money was available to me in France before the close of business on the day it left my English account.

Actually, now I come to think of it, there was one occasion when the money was in my French account before it had even been taken from my English one!

Now I have got all that lot off my chest i must confess that my rant is out of date.  The English banks have cleaned up their act to a certain extent.  Some inter-bank transfers are effective within two hours - but not all of them, so there is still some way to go.

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Continuing our tour of French châteaux, we move twenty miles or so north from Pouancé to Vitré, another town on the Breton marches.  If I am taking people to Vitré I like to circle the town on the bypass and enter from the north.  This way one drives down a long, fairly shallow hill which is lined on either side by hideous 1920s house and bungalows.  But at the foot of the hill there is a right angle turn into a narrow street and the "wow" factor becomes apparent.