How long does bank transfers take?

1

I’ve just topped up £50 by bank transfer to my Revolut account.
This was 5-10 minutes ago.

I can’t see it yet.
How come?

All other bank transfers I do elsewhere go through instantly.
What am I doing wrong?

  • I just saw the video on the Revolut website “family and friends can send money instantly” - how does one send instantly? By debit card?

Thanks.

2

It can take up to 4 hours to show up. Friends ad family can send money instantly to each other if they all have a Revolut account (just like with PayPal).

3

thanks for the repy. just confused why it should take a few hours when normal bacs transfer go through within seconds.

4

I think it can take even longer than 4 hours. I’m currently waiting for a payment to arrive which I sent over 5 hours ago, from NatWest, using faster payments.
It’s a little bit ironic how payments between traditional banks usually arrive within seconds, whereas Revolut - modern, digital age, leading edge fintech - takes many hours to receive payments.
Something to be improved on, Revolut!

1 Like
5

Yes, it is odd that “top up” from debit card is instantaneous, but faster payments is so slow. By comparison, Monzo prefers that people use bank transfer by faster payments rather than top up, since the former costs them less. When I use faster payments from Santander to Monzo it happens in an instant. Santander to Revolut by faster payments seems to take hours.

6

Digging the thread, thought I’d give info since this thread appears on Google search results a lot.
FasterPayments transfers are only instantaneous among “Direct Participants,” aka the high-street banks and a select few. Challenger banks and financial institutions have to partner with and route their transfers through some of these Direct Participants and hence that adds additional delay.

Core members aren’t really keen on onboarding challengers as I guess they can charge them to route transfers through them. Similar to the BGP peering market for the few computer guys out there :slight_smile:

Please also note that even among Direct Participants, transfers above 10k and the occasional random transfer under 10k can take a bit of time.

FasterPayments only guarantees two hours within working hours and one business day otherwise.

7

Hopefully once they have their banking licence, they will be able to receive these instant payments in the UK (same for SEPA, actually)

8

Should help, but there are currently way more licenced banks than FP Direct Participants though.
Becoming a Direct Participant is more of a commercial challenge than a legal one. A banking licence might be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.
SEPA Instantaneous Credit Transfer sounds great too, wish it had wider support!