How long does a wire transfer usually take

[mirek]

I had my lawyer wire some money into my account last week, from refinancing. It was done on Wednesday, and still no money. I spoke with PCf and they don't know how long it will take. Neither does the lawyers funding office. Wouldn't a wire transfer be instant, or within a day or two?

[jacksorbetta]

We tell our clients it can take upto 3 weeks:o . It seems its usually about 5 business days though depending on where the funds originated. You didn't have the option of just getting a bank draft? Wire transfers are pricey...

[jojochiu]

it actually should be quite fast..when I do wire transfers for clients outside of the country they receive the money within 48 hours

but than again it depends because it gets put thru a queue..and wire transfer usually go thru 2 queues.

[mirek]

We tell our clients it can take upto 3 weeks:o . It seems its usually about 5 business days though depending on where the funds originated. You didn't have the option of just getting a bank draft? Wire transfers are pricey...

Bank Draft was 25 couriered, and wire was 35$ so I opted for the wire.

Thanks, I'll wait few more days. Thought it was alot faster too

[mikeroyal]

I have just wired money PCF to the US and it arrived next day.

[lesnar]

did a transfer to overseas. it took 2 business days.

[urban1]

I received a wire transfer to my PCF account last week. The money was wired from another Canadian bank. It was wired mid-day and I saw it in my account online a few hours later the same day.

[grant]

We tell our clients it can take upto 3 weeks:o . It seems its usually about 5 business days though depending on where the funds originated. You didn't have the option of just getting a bank draft? Wire transfers are pricey...
3 weeks? Where does that come from? I'm guess you're a bank employee. Do you know something special about wire transfers or do you just tell people that because even if the bank makes a mistake and takes 3 weeks to fix it, you can still claim it's "normal"?

as far as I know, a wire transfer should happen within a day... that's the whole point of using an electronic transfer.

Using a wire transfer will also avoid the receiving bank putting a hold on the funds... I ran into this issue with a US bank being suspicious that my bank draft was counterfeit.

[porphyra]

Takes 2 days for a wire transfer from overseas. Sometimes 3 at the most!

3 weeks seems unreasonably long.

[mirek]

Takes 2 days for a wire transfer from overseas. Sometimes 3 at the most!

3 weeks seems unreasonably long.

Thanks, Then in that case I emailed my lawyers office and they're contacting the funding department to see if they could research it.

My guess is that PCf is holding the funds to make some interest on it?

[Just Confused]

This is one of those cases where it pays to have a back-up bank account at a bricks & mortar bank in addition to your main virtual bank like PCF. You can get more help causing a disturbance in a branch than you can with a call centre agent who puts you on mute.

[grant]

The fault could be PCF's, or the fault could be the lawyer's bank.

You are right that PCF's customer service can be lacking at times. What kind of answer is "we don't know how long it will take" ... either they've received the money or not, there's no ambiguity about that.

Although personally I don't think even B&M bank lackeys can give much better answers (just look at jacksorbetta's post... '3 weeks' sounds like a snow job to me). Now that I have a business account manager (@ cibc), the level of service just blows me away.

[Thalo]

Realistically, if everyone's on the ball, a wire can happen overnight. Usually there's delays somewhere, so the standard bank answer is the wire will arrive in "3 weeks", if at all.

[jacksorbetta]

<----*defends herself*

Hey! I was just passing along what I've been instructed. Transfer times may vary for sure. I've seen some coming from Serbia that arrived in 24 hours, and ones sent to the US take 2 weeks. Lord help ya if there is an error in any of the info too- the required information is stringent, and most senders usually don't have all the info they need at the time they try to wire money.

Besides, I don't work in the Wire Payment dep't- I only key in the info, and debit accounts for the wires. I never said I was an expert:rolleyes:

[Thalo]

Usually it's not the bank rep's fault, but the fault of some back office shmo either on the domestic side or on the other side.

2 wires that I did in recent years that took the longest: One was to Pakistan and when it arrived there, the Pakistani bank made the money "disappear". Another was to Montenegro and got messed up because the back office didn't have a country code for them yet (it's a brand new country).

[grant]

<----*defends herself*

Hey! I was just passing along what I've been instructed. Transfer times may vary for sure. I've seen some coming from Serbia that arrived in 24 hours, and ones sent to the US take 2 weeks. Lord help ya if there is an error in any of the info too- the required information is stringent, and most senders usually don't have all the info they need at the time they try to wire money.

Besides, I don't work in the Wire Payment dep't- I only key in the info, and debit accounts for the wires. I never said I was an expert:rolleyes:
Not sure what your defending yourself against? I'm sure you do your job competently.

You've basically explained a wire transfer only takes more than a day when someone has screwed up.

If PCF was on the ball they'd be able to explain to the op "the wire transfer didn't complete because it was missing information" or whatever.

[mirek]

Well I've been on the phone with PCf this whole morning, it's been 5 business days, I've had it. I have to pay 11$ to have this investigated :\

It would have been faster if I just took a cheque and deposited it!

[mirek]

Looks like they finally tracked it down and it was rejected by PCf due to my PCf account having my wrong first name attached to it.

Now I have to wait for a cheque to get couriered, and then 5 days hold period.

Time to open up a RBC acct!

[naxos98]

If you go to a bank to do a wire (within Canada), I have found it will usually take an hour or so, but it can vary greatly. When you do a wire at a bank, it goes to your bank's wire department, then to the receiving bank's wire department and then finally to the destination account. At any of these stages, it can get delayed if there is high volume of wires happening. Also if there are any mistakes in the wire information, it can get hung up for days. When doing a wire you need to make sure you have the exact account number format. Things like missing leading zeros or dashes can delay your wire.