Bank topup slowness inquiry

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to ask about this (and couldn’t find an answer when searching), but I’m curious as to why bank transfers take so much time?

I’m not asking about a particular instance, but what about them cannot be automated to appear instantly in one’s account at any time of day? Doubt it is an engineering issue, wondering about any legal/financial reasons?

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I think the way it works is that you send the money to Freetrade’s (Lloyds) bank account with a unique reference. They then manually redirect this money to your account during business hours in batches. The investment platform should make this automatic.

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Apparently this is still not ideal, even if I’m already on the new platform.

Tried to top up £1000 at around 11am but didn’t have it after 5 hours. Contacted customer services and was told it’s because I used a different account, instead of the linked account for the top up.

I have 2 options, 1) FT could refund the money but it’ll take up to 10 working days, which is insane or 2) Send the bank statement (PDF) of last three months of the new account to a email address, which I guess someone will manually check it and re-link my FT account to the new bank account.

Either options are going to be slow and I already missed buying opportunities of a couple of stocks surged later today (which I should took some of the blame for not topping up earlier).

The top up process is still not good. And why the total amount you can top up using Google Pay/Apply Pay is limited to ÂŁ1000?

This isn’t bank top-up being slow it’s 100% your error.

I know it’s me to blame, but only partially. Are all these restrictions necessary?

Never had the same issues when topping up Revolut, Monzo and T212.

I guess FT are trying to be cautious for whatever reason but is it going a bit too far?

Not partially, 100%. It clearly states this on the bank transfer top up page in app, ignorance really is no defence.

On the question of why this is, I would imagine the restrictions are part of kyc. Marcus by Goldman Sachs uses the linked account structure. Revolut and 212 I have no idea don’t use them. Monzo uses a bank transfer, you can’t top up by card anymore, they will perform their own checks.

I would assume this is down to licensing if I was to guess.

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Not read the small text before topping up something I trusted for the past year is ignorance and I am the one to blame for the whole of it? Great heads up!

There are many ways to solve it. How about allowing more than one linked account? Or allowing top up using Google Pay for ÂŁ1000 per month? You can always find a way to make it better.

At least FT can send me a notification. And perhaps you should give T212 and Revolut a try otherwise is it ignorance as well?

I’ve made the same error topping up my Freetrade account from a non-linked account. It took a few days to sort out. My other £ broker, Degiro, have the same “linked account” restriction.

Maybe they can make they should bolden and shorten the “important steps for topping up” instructions.

I’m not falling foul of their restrictions?

It sucks to hear you’ve had problems topping up your account. You’re definitely not the only one, and this is something we’re keen to improve. :frowning:

We have some changes in the works to make bank account transfers snappier and easier to use.

That said, we have to make sure we get these improvements right. Currently, we restrict you to linking a single bank account because it helps us prevent financial crime. If we allow customers to link many accounts, we have to figure out how to stop criminals from abusing it.

It’s on our radar. I hope you’ll stay tuned! :nerd_face: :crossed_fingers:

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You can find out yourself. I’m not saying your have to try those two. In fact the list could go on in the future. But it’s up to you if you want to find out how other people are doing.

My point is that we shouldn’t call other people ignorant if our opinions themselves are biased.

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If we allow customers to link many accounts, we have to figure out how to stop criminals from abusing it.

I agree it’s not normal if someone want to link 5 or 10 accounts and should be stopped but allowing up to 2 is not too many in any sense. I guess most people here would have at least one of those Neo bank account and at least one “traditional” bank account somewhere else.

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We have some changes in the works to make bank account transfers snappier and easier to use.

But thanks for the heads up anyway! FT is definitely my main investment platform for the near future.