EQ Bank maintenance Oct 11 to 14, 2019 | Page 2 | EQ Bank | Discussion forum

To summarize my transfer experience:
I set up a pre-authorized transfer out (push) from EQ that was supposed to occur Oct 15.
On Oct 14, EQ notified me that they had debited my account.
The transfer-out is dated Oct 15 at EQ.
The money showed up at the external bank on Oct 16.
Oct 14 was not a business day; Oct 15 and 16 were business days.

It seems, from what others have reported, that this transaction can take place in the course of one business day at other banks.
I don't really understand why it took 3 days overall.
Would it be correct to assume that interest would be paid at EQ through Oct 14, none on the 15th, and at the external bank beginning Oct 16 (if it paid interest)? Or some other arrangement?
Having pre-scheduled the transfer, I thought that should make it go as efficiently as possible. Is there any rule about how long they can take to do it? And which bank does one blame for slowness - sender or receiver?

I haven't really paid much attention to this sort of thing before and am trying to get it all straight in my mind so that I can refine my transfer strategies.

I also say that EQ took the money out of the account on the 14th and it showed up on the 16th. 14, 15, 16 = 3 days.
Other people have reported initiating transfers from other banks in the morning arriving elsewhere same day = 1 day.
I hope that is clearer.

They took the money out on the 14th, a non-business day, dated the transfer-out the next day, the 15th (we all understand how dating works re non-business days), thus it was taken out the 15th. It was at destination the 16th, that's 1 day (if a friend says he's coming to visit you in 1 day you think they're showing up the same day?). The fact that sometimes people manage to get money transferred the same day does not make that the normal process or expectation, I don't think anyone else here complains to their bank if it takes overnight to get to destination as that's understood to be the norm. Or even the next day after. There's no issue here.

I have had the same experience Loonie. I did a post dated transaction because I needed the cash for something and didn’t want to have to remember to do it on a Tuesday after a long weekend. I imputed the transaction late on the Friday. The money was withdrawn immediately, so I guess I missed interest over that long weekend. Kinda annoyed at that. I did get the money transferred on time though. I’m thinking it has to do with “business days”. If you initiate the transaction with the assigned moving day as the very next business day, it will withdraw the money instantly. I’m guessing that dating the transaction for the Wednesday would have been better. Oh well, live and learn, right.

That's an interesting philosophical question, Loonie: Did the money move over the long weekend?

For sure, a postdated debit was recorded in your EQ Bank savings account. That's similar to me writing a postdated cheque and recording it in my cheque register. Cheque register balance is updated immediately. But, I don't think any money moved immediately.

When a push takes one business day, it doesn't mean the receiving branch is necessarily a Serviceability Code "1" branch. There are two possibilities for that:

1. EQ Bank had sent the electronic direct deposit out the same business day, before 9 pm Eastern. The receiving Serviceability Code "1" branch needs one business day to post the transaction and make the funds available.
2. EQ Bank had actually sent the electronic direct deposit out the next business day, before 9 pm Eastern. The receiving Serviceability Code "0" branch needs two hours after the cutoff to post the transaction and make the funds available.

I didn't run into anything in the clearing rules that obligates a sending financial institution to transmit the electronic direct deposit the same day the funds are removed from the customer's account.

However, I did see this in Payment Canada Rule F1 that implies Direct Clearers need to have Serviceability Code "0" for their own branches:

Serviceability Code Assignment

Each Direct Clearer shall designate on the Financial Institutions File a Serviceability Code of:

a. “0” for each of its destination Branches; and

b. Either “0”, “1”, or “2” for each destination Branch of a Financial Institution for which it acts as a Clearing Agent.

Among the Direct Clearers are Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank, TD Bank, National Bank, and CIBC. If one has an account at one of them, one can push funds to the account to see how soon the sending bank transmits the direct deposit transaction into the clearing system.

Bill reported earlier that a push done early enough at Alterna Bank would reach his account at TD by dinner time the same business day!

My understanding is that the serviceability codes only reflect servicing of incoming direct deposit transactions. It is definitely possible for a financial institution to have a different service level for incoming pre-authorized debits.