Holds on transfers | Page 3 | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

dickyran333 said
But does pulling the funds result in earning more interest?

Again, I doubt banks would ever leave such a loophole. But then what am I missing here?

Would this fall into money laundering, etc., and the banks may question me about the frequent fund transfers?  

Yes, you can potentially earn addition interest, it just really depends on the institutions involved in the transfer of funds. Some occur the same day and others take a day, or two longer.

It's not a loophole, just how the system works.

No, it's not money laundering.

Next time you do a pull transfer, initiate it to occur on a Friday and if you get lucky the funds will be debited from the other account on Monday.

I imagine you could do this but eventually somebody will notice and will find some way of shutting you down or making it impossible for everyone.

I don't think it's illegal per se as it's the FI hat decided to give you the interest.

It's the reverse of the other situation that arises at FIs such as Meridian, where you can initiate a transfer, you get debited immediately but they don't send the money to the new FI for 3 or 4 days, if I remember correctly. During this period your money is nowhere and you earn nothing. And there is nothing you can do about it except to not use this mechanism.

It's a nuisance manoeuvre though. Lots of FIs have transfer limits and maximum number of transactions.

I am not a lawyer.

Oscar said
Norman I am positive that I initiated a push into Alterna. I have never added the other institution to my Alterna M2M transfer list so it would not have been possible to pull the funds in. That's why I decided to post my experience as it still seems to be an arbitrary process. When I was speaking with the CSR at Alterna regarding this issue I noted that I pushed the funds into Alterna and so the funds should not have been subject to hold and she told me all M2M transfers are subject to a 5 day hold period regardless of whether it was pushed or pulled. The info on their website doesn't really make their position clear as far as I could see. 

It won't be a Me-2-Me transfer for Alterna Bank if it was a push that was originated at the other institution. It would be an incoming direct deposit for Alterna Bank.

If the incoming funds were posted and were on hold at Alterna Bank, then Alterna Bank would have returned the preauthorized debit from Oaken with the reason FNC (Funds Not Cleared) instead of NSF.

If the Oaken preauthorized debit was bounced as NSF by Alterna Bank, then the funds were not in the Alterna account when the debit was processed.

Financial institution are allowed up to two business days to post direct deposits to accounts. It sounds like Oaken's preauthorized debit was processed before the incoming direct deposit was posted.

Norman1 said

Oscar said
Norman I am positive that I initiated a push into Alterna. I have never added the other institution to my Alterna M2M transfer list so it would not have been possible to pull the funds in. That's why I decided to post my experience as it still seems to be an arbitrary process. When I was speaking with the CSR at Alterna regarding this issue I noted that I pushed the funds into Alterna and so the funds should not have been subject to hold and she told me all M2M transfers are subject to a 5 day hold period regardless of whether it was pushed or pulled. The info on their website doesn't really make their position clear as far as I could see. 

It won't be a Me-2-Me transfer for Alterna Bank if it was a push that was originated at the other institution. It would be an incoming direct deposit for Alterna Bank.

If the incoming funds were posted and were on hold at Alterna Bank, then Alterna Bank would have returned the preauthorized debit from Oaken with the reason FNC (Funds Not Cleared) instead of NSF.

If the Oaken preauthorized debit was bounced as NSF by Alterna Bank, then the funds were not in the Alterna account when the debit was processed.

Financial institution are allowed up to two business days to post direct deposits to accounts. It sounds like Oaken's preauthorized debit was processed before the incoming direct deposit was posted.  

This is what is listed on My Alterna screenshot on September 1
On August 26(Friday) it lists the transaction as a M2M Incoming transfer with a reference number and funds are listed in balance.
August 29 (Monday) listed as a Pre authorized debit incoming HB Oaken ref#...
August 30 "Returned Pre-authorized debit HB Oaken ref#... (identical to above)
There was no indication of either NSF or FNC or any other code.

So sequence of transactions were as follows: I pushed funds and then logged into Alterna and confirmed funds had arrived and then I logged into Oaken and set up a PAD and I got a screenshot confirmation that money was posted into Oaken, all on the 26th.
I actually set up the GIC through telephone banking and the Oaken CSR saw and used the money in my Oaken account to fund the GIC(not sure if on 26th or 29th).
Received email from Oaken on September 15 that stated the transaction initiated from my savings account on the 26th was unsuccessful, GIC is no longer active. This is what I thought was a NSF although it wasn't specifically noted by any institution.

I just spoke with a csr today at Alterna and so i asked for clarification on holds on funds pushed into Alterna and she told me incoming used to be held for 24 to 48 hours but with new website it will now be 24 hour hold on funds pushed into Alterna. Different information than previously given about 5 day holds.

Norman1 said:

"Something is not right!

I checked my Alterna Bank statements. Credits that were pulls are shown as "M2M Incoming Transfer…". Credits that were pushes, done from Hubert, were shown as "Misc Payments - Hubert…" and not as M2M transactions.
Your August 26 credit, shown as "M2M Incoming transfer…" and without the name of the external financial institution, looks like a pull done at Alterna."  

I checked Alterna statement and it also is same as screenshot: M2M incoming transfer. Checked statement from institution that I pushed from and it shows transaction as "Inter FI Debit M2M to (Alterna acct#)". Does that look like a push ?

Oscar said

I just spoke with a csr today at Alterna and so i asked for clarification on holds on funds pushed into Alterna and she told me incoming used to be held for 24 to 48 hours but with new website it will now be 24 hour hold on funds pushed into Alterna. Different information than previously given about 5 day holds.  

Norman1 said

That is strange!

From the originating institution, it looks like a push. From the receiving Alterna account, it was recorded like an M2M pull!

I wonder if Alterna has a bug in its system that causes an incoming push to be sometimes incorrectly recorded as an outgoing pull (M2M incoming)!  

Good to know. So csr at Alterna could have looked at transaction and assumed it was a pull based on code and thought it normal to have a 5 day hold(possibly).
Alterna just revamped their online banking site, last weekend I believe and it now looks the same as Oakens. Maybe this won't be an issue anymore but I will pay attention to the way they list transactions going forward. Thanks for the info!

I don’t think push has any advantage over pull.
I pushed funds from Motive Financial to RBC and RBC still had five business days funds on hold. I was trying to make a case with RBC to no avail.

UkrainianDude said
I don’t think push has any advantage over pull.
I pushed funds from Motive Financial to RBC and RBC still had five business days funds on hold. I was trying to make a case with RBC to no avail.  

That is strange. There should not be a hold on funds received via direct deposit. What was RBC's response?

UkrainianDude said
I don’t think push has any advantage over pull.
I pushed funds from Motive Financial to RBC and RBC still had five business days funds on hold. I was trying to make a case with RBC to no avail.

That doesn't sound right.

What is the description text of the deposit, as shown in the online banking list of transactions or in the monthly statement?

Looks like two direct deposits of type "Misc Payment".

I don't think the type was the issue. Looking at my RBC account records, most of my direct deposits for funds pushed from another online bank, like Tangerine Bank, are of type "Investment". I found one "Misc Payment" direct deposit from Hubert. There was no hold on that direct deposit as the funds were debited by a pull the next day.

Did RBC explain why those two direct deposits were subject to a hold? Are you sure the hold was for those two direct deposits and not for some other deposits around the same time?