I have one high street account - which I have open for ‘large transfers’ and the like. In theory.
RBS have a 20k cap per day - the only alternative appearing to be to visit a branch to make a chaps payment!?
I’ve not yet used a fintech for such things. Revolut for instance appear to allow transfers of up to 250k per transaction.
That said, I’m not sure if I’ll use them when the time comes (house purchase) - so what other banks allow online payments online (even if it’s CHAPS)
You can see the Faster Payment limits for each bank via various channels here:
https://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/about-us/personal-transaction
I don’t know how you find out the limits for payments over and above that, but CHAPS is theoretically unlimited (within reason) so as long as a bank participates in the CHAPS scheme you should be able to send whatever you like, security checks permitting.
You can check if a given sort code supports CHAPS here:
Thanks! I’ll have a look.
CHAPS is available at RBS - but you have to go to a branch to do it - I don’t think soo!
That’s for 20k and over.
I let my solicitor handle everything on my house purchase last year. The solicitor even retained the funds from our sold house, held them on file and then transfered the monies directly to the developers on completing on the new house. Our bank never saw the funds from the sale of our old house, it never hit our account. I had no involvement whatsoever in transferring any funds at all, no banks to worry about. An extremely easy process. The following link explains better than I can:
First time buyer 
An external transfer will be involved with the conveyancer - when the time comes!
If you are a first time buyer the mortgage lender usually transfer the funds to your solicitor. You just transfer your deposit, so you usually need to transfer only a few 10s of 1000s, not 100s (unless you are a cash buyer, of course, in which case: congrats!).
I used Santander back in the day, IIRC they allow faster payments up to 100k, though you have to do by phone above a certain limit.
I have to admit, we didn’t even have to do anything regarding transfer of funds when we bought our first home 20 years ago. Like our current new home, that too was a new build and the purchase deal was that the developers paid the 5 percent deposit required to secure the home and there was no Stamp Duty to pay. Our mortgage provider at the time, Intelligent Finance, dealt with the developers solicitors and obviously they between them ensured the developer was paid. In short, I personally had no funds whatsoever to transfer other than solicitors fees.
On the purchase of our new build home last year, much to the angst of the Estate Agency handling the sale of the new build home we purchased, we chose NOT to use the developers solicitors, which turned out very much to be our saviour. Our chosen independent solicitor is a specialist in the purchase of new builds and picked the draft purchase contract to pieces causing the developers solicitors to make several key important amendments in our favour. It stands to reason, a solicitor acting on behalf of a developer, is not necessarily acting in the purchasers best interests! Our solicitor didn’t come cheap, but you get what you pay for. Choose wisely!
Sure, so it’s 10’s of 1000’s in question for the exchange & mortgage deposit - not 100’s but more than the £20,000 RBS allow per day.
Thanks for the heads up r.e Santander. Did used to have an account with them.
We’re not going for a new build. As for the solicitor - they did make one slip up actioning searches before our instruction. It’s a chain though - so hasn’t been much movement for a while…
Starling let you transfer up to £500,000 in 2x £250k faster payments.
Otherwise, I would second the recommend for Santander - where you can often do multiple £25k transfers to the same payee via the app (up to £100k) or by telephone if you want it to go as one payment.
Thanks for the suggestions all
It’s interesting how some of the fintechs offer far higher limits (bar Monzo) but perhaps at the risk of some extra checks? (Only a risk really if their response times are slow)
As for the high st banks - I’m surprised how low some limits are given they’re closing branches left right and centre. A CHAPS in branch isn’t really feasible for me with RBS.
I’d be quite happy to pay a CHAPS fee if done online - but some of those FP limits should cover it.
Just a quick question - is the exchange deposit sorted at contracts and the rest (thankfully we have more than the minimum) on the completion date? As this would affect what limits I would or wouldn’t need.
I think most high street banks do allow CHAPS to be set up through telephone banking, RBS are most likely the exception rather than the rule.
Barclays, Starling and Monzo allow CHAPS to be arranged online, but I don’t know about other banks?
Lloyds and Halifax also seem to reference going to a branch - TSB too!
Looks like CHAPS online can be done via Coop & Nationwide also.
I had intended to switch to Nationwide for the £100 and this functionality but they cocked up the account opening.
Telephone is also a bit blurghh
I’d rather sort it myself online!
Starling could be the route forward - but in terms of limits Revolut and Dozens could cater to the same as Starling
I suppose the Joint account aspect could be good
Just as well!
They only have 50 branches left, and a very limited phone service.
I believe Starling can temporarily raise your limits, as Monzo do, if you are competing a transaction such as a house purchase.
The published limits are their “standard” limits (they can increase the Faster Payments limit up to the scheme limit - which is the same as Santander’s limit - or send a CHAPS payment instead).
On the FP site it’s stating 250k - same as Revolut? Or is that the max they can raise it too?
I don’t need that much just more than 20 
As for Coop - I actually work right by a branch not that it looks busy. Don’t they have a Smile brand too?
In most cases the lawyers will request the funds a bit earlier, just to be sure. In out case I received an email at some stage along the lines of “we expect exchange of contract next week. We advise you transfer the deposit in time to avoid delay”
Was your exchange deposit identical to the mortgage deposit?
Maybe they’ll want the lot in advance and handle the movements whenever it’s required
May drop an email on Monday - in case they have forgotten about us (chain has been going on for months)
£250,000 is the “scheme limit” (the technical maximum single payment that the Faster Payments scheme can support).
If you want to go beyond that, you can use a CHAPS payment - and either Starling or Monzo will allow this, subject to verification.
Raising the Faster Payments limit if the usual bank limit is below the scheme limit may also be possible, depending on the bank.