Quote from: zpyderI was pleasantly surprised today when transferring money from my barclays account to the isa. I ticked the transfer immediately button, and expected it to leave barclays and appear in my santander account next week. But no, i switched tabs and clicked the balance on the isa and it literally was instant! Since when did banks do instant transfers across bank companies?

Quite a while now, its called the faster payments service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service

Well here in the states you cant even transfer money online at all. You have to write a cheque (check) out still like its 1920.

I think that must be changing, however slowly, because when Honeywell bought the large UK group of which my employer is a part, about 1/3 of it was a £500m US cheque-printing business, which they immediately got rid of. Must be no future in it

perhaps it just wasnt very profitable and so they used the opportunity they had when re-structuring the business to simply get rid...

could see why tbh... likely a very low margin business as its not like the consumers of that product (the banks) are selling it on at a profit - tis just a cost for them which theyd like to keep as low as possible

problem with the US banking system is that its so fragmented - were OK in the UK in that weve got a handful of very big national banks - in the US the average man in the street is just as likely to have an account with any of the many small local banks all with their own IT system etc... I reckon the checks will be around for some time still...

Quote from: SamWell sh*tty companies can either double or collapse. Thats the risk you take. I invested $500 this week in ELCR but only for a laugh.

If you want a solid return - buy GE, or BAC or BCS. You cannot go wrong. They wont double but in a year Id be amazed if you got less than 20%.

Whats with all this share tipping stuff???

Didnt know you were into all that.