xset

More bank rantage

// March 30th, 2006 // Personal

Anybody heard the track from William Shatner’s Has Been album? The one with Henry Rollins? Called I can’t get behind that? It’s a general rant about the state of the world today.

Well I’m in the midst of a “Can’t Get Behind That” moment.

Why is it that you pay from something on a debit card and the money is instantly deducted from your account yet an incoming transaction takes up to 5 days to complete?

I CAN’T GET BEHIND THAT KIND OF BLATANT CON ARTISTRY

What? Do the banks of this world think no-one notices that vast sums of money disappear for days on end? Cos here’s the bit that really gets my goat – the money leaves your account instantly

Let’s run some numbers:

• Take an average company of 50 staff – all paid monthly by BACS
• Wages run from £20,000 per year to £50,000 per year across the staff
• You’re looking at an average of £2,900 paid per person per month
• That’s a total of £145,000 per pay run
• Nearly one hundred and fifty grand that disappears for 3 days every month
• That’s a total of 36 days over the course of a year with just shy £1,750,000
• Now lets take a base rate of 1% interest over the month or so the money isn’t around
• Do the maths and … what do you know – the banks walk away with a cool £17,400 in lost interest – per year, per company (and that’s before the charges they levy to make the transactions in the first place)

And why oh why do we all sit there and take it? Businesses? Individuals? Why?