Clearing Paper Checks from Foreign Origins

[SkepticsRock]

New Guy Here. Retired in Thailand since 2012, Thai Wife,  Lovely Thai-American son.

 

 

 

Apologies if this has been covered.  I've seen posts on the general topic over the years and couldn't find any updates so perhaps the information is the same.  I have one of my pensions from a US source that insists on coming by snail mail (the pension company's rule).  For ages, as you'll probably be repeating the counter wisdom at the banks is "About 45 Days".  I actually found when I started getting the checks back in '12 that because it was a "big ol'" American bank and my local bank is no slouch, that I was getting my money in the account here anywhere from 21 (the all time low) to 28 days.  That lag increased bit by bit over ensuing seasons and as it represents about 1/3 of my funds I was constantly having to adjust from 25 to 35 to 42 days.  It hung at the 42 day average for quite a while but the bank kept reciting "it could take up to sixty days, now" because they'd changed correspondent banks in the US.

 

A couple of months ago....   Kaboom!  They went from 42, 42, 41, 43 in the previous months to 72 (seventy-two).   This is creating difficulties for us.  I'm glad my son is old enough to understand when Santa's going to be late ('cuz daddy's broke), but we always live rather check-to-check and dealing with a time lag of 87 days from date of check (the last one was written on Aug 1, received here and deposited Aug 14 and cleared into my account on Oct 24.

 

I'm not naming the bank, 'tho I presume some members may have been having the same problems as it's across all branches in my area.  The problem is that head office doesn't answer anything.  The local branches here phone the number they have on the Post-It on their monitors and it's their internal call center.  They have some of their more popular canned answers but apparently do nothing pro-active.  The constant reply is "we are waiting for your bank to send the money".  Which is nonsense and perhaps Tina Teller believes it but it's just a "leave me alone" dodge. Someone in the US (likely their correspondent) is sitting on the funds.  

 

 

Is anyone still banking paper checks and are your banks clearing at 40/45 days, still.  I'll just move the account.  I have a couple of friends with business accounts (Thai nationals) and they don't track these things but say they've noticed no difference in the performance recently. (They aren't banking at my bank.)

 

From my working life, I know a lot about banking.  Someone - either their correspondent or themselves - is living off the overnight rates.  I'm investigating with the pension plan, but one bank or another (maybe several) are playing with the funds.  The overnight rate on my little thousand bucks is nothing - but you do that a few thousand times a week/month with varying amounts and it can amount to a lot.  I want to get to the bottom of it because I hate being shucked and jived, but mostly I need to find a way to get that check through the clearing process faster.  If that means changing banks, I will.

 

Thanks for listening and thanks for having me as a member.  I source a lot of helpful information on these forums.