Bankers' hours

In the best of all possible worlds, they'd be 24/7/365. We're not there yet by any means, but this is kind of heartening in a perverse sort of way.

Earlier this week I dropped a check payable to me in the night depository at Monolithic Bank and Trust Company (Member FDIC). Historically, I knew to expect a certain amount of hold time, and that the bank would send me a letter telling me exactly when that hold time would expire.

Which, it turns out, is the third of November. A Saturday.

They're still not accustomed to this sort of thing — if I pay most bills using their online facility on Saturday night, it will be Monday before the actual payments are posted — but this is progress, however small.

One other promising sign: If you also have one of their credit cards, you can pay the bill online up to 8 pm Eastern on the due date and it will still be on time. However, perhaps to offset this advantage, they're twiddling the due dates so they don't always fall on the same day of the month. (I've experimented with this: a bill paid at 6:55 pm Central was in fact credited the same day. Wait ten minutes, though, and you might as well wait 24 hours — or 23:50, anyway.)

Posted at 7:53 AM to Common Cents