Public Holiday puts a hold on my Credit Alert

1

Last night, being 24th of March, a client of mine assured me he had made a Transfer of a pending Balance for a Concluded Job. After waiting for hours without receiving an Alert, I inquired if he sent the money to the right account, and he assured me the money had been paid to me.

Fast forward to this evening of 25th March, my account is yet to be credited. In the cause of assuring me he’s serious, he sent me a copy of the ‘GTBANK ONLINE TRANSFER ADVICE’, and the Transaction Date read; 29-March-2016.

Amazing! Amazing!! Amazing!!!

I have inbound/outbound transfers an average of every 48hrs. Never encountered this issue before.
Then I read the Remarks on the ‘Advice Sheet’ and it stated ’ NIBSS Instant Payment Outward blah blah blah’. My client assures me its because of the ‘Public Holiday’.

I use my Bank Mobile App OR Quickteller, so NIBSS has never played a role.
The much I know of NIBSS Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) is that it is an irrevocable fund transfer instruction where a bank simply captures their customer’s funds transfer instructions electronically. However, the bank will first debit the customer’s account to ensure that the funds are set aside after which such a bank customer’s instruction (along with other customers instructions) are sent to NIBSS as an electronic file for onward processing. NIBSS subsequently processes each electronic file from banks containing several NEFT instructions to ensure the beneficiaries receive value such that their accounts are credited within a few hours.

Please I need someone to help me understand how the Public Holiday affects my Credit Alert. Or are NIBSS payments done manually inside the bank?
Please enlighten me.

2

I don’t know why this happens, but it’s normal with NEFT transfers. I know this because, for some reason, Zenith Bank won’t let me do instant transfers from my corporate account, unless it’s to another Zenith Bank account. Payments aren’t processed over the weekend or during public holidays, and if you initiate a transfer after 1pm or so, it isn’t processed at all until the next morning and may not get to the receiving account until 3pm or 4pm the next day.

I don’t want to believe it’s a manual process, but everything sort of points to that.

3

Thanks @dupemacaulay; That explains a lot.
The manual process though; SMH. Nigeria can have funny policies in place. So if there’s an emergency, a person would need to chill till next year to be able to utilize his/her funds.

4

Never use NEFT if is an emergency. That’s what NIP and the 105 naira tax is for.

1 Like
5

I’m still charged 105 on my NEFT transfers. Think it’s standard inter-bank fee, regardless of whether they waste your time or not.

6

Which even makes you wonder why anyone would use NEFT. I never tried it. Just always assumed it was the “free” option.

7

I use NIPSS Instant Transfers via Zenith Bank Internet Banking and I’ve never experienced any delay even on weekends. I’ve not tried on Public Holidays though.

8

Because instant transfers are exactly what they are, instant. Well, sometimes they take 5 minutes but you get the point.

9

Some of us have no option. I mean, I could always switch to another bank, but I just can’t be bothered.

10

Oh, I see.

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NAPS is a product of a strategic alliance between NIBSS and SystemSpecs Limited which is a direct response to market demand for On-Line-Real-Time bulk payment. It is a variance of the NIBSS Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system introduced in 2004 and the NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) introduced in 2011.

The service is designed to enable faster processing of bulk payments like salaries, allowances, contractors payments and direct debit recoveries. It is a full end-to-end Credit (Push) & Debit (Pull) Transactions service deployable to corporate customers of Banks. READ MORE HERE

For Bulk Payment like Salaries, Allowances or Contractors Payment, its understandable. But for personal payments, hell no. If the N105 is still charged for NEFT Transfers, then I don’t even see the reason why NEFT exist in the first-place.

Last I checked, NEFT is also available in Firstbank (My Primary Bank) and I didn’t know or care for NEFT till now because Firstbank Online, Firstbank Mobile, Firstmonie and Quickteller does the job well. If NEFT was designed for scheduled payments, then hell yeah! But my pending transaction wasn’t a Bulk One or a Scheduled One! :joy:

PS. I think NIBSS should add a feature that informs a beneficiary that a Transfer has been initiated but awaits approval (could also mention anticipated approval date). That will be a step forward to make things easier.

12

That’s what you get when a solution is not built to help the use but to increase the builders bottomline. Everything can drive you crazy if you think about it too much.

13

@dupemacaulay Have you tried asking at the bank? I had the same issue with a Diamond Bank corporate account - only NEFT transfers came with my initial online banking set up. I asked at the bank and they added the option of NIP for me.