topic Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy? in Personal Finance

Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

core — Sun, 03 May 2020 21:56:13 GMT

I've been using Penfed as an ACH hub for years and have always had a $5k daily limit. But today when I logged in I had some screwy-low limit for incoming transfers, and also an odd lower number than usual for outgoing transfers. It no longer lists amount processed for the day like it used to. The worst part is I didn't immediately get an available balance credit for my incoming transfer that I put in. That's the whole point of using Penfed... they float you the cash and you can immediately transfer it elsewhere without waiting for it to clear.

Has anyone else noticed these changes? It's Sunday so maybe stuff is just shut down for maintenance or something? But maybe they've placed me in the penalty box because I do quite a few transfers per month via that account and never leave much cash in there. So I'm starting to get worried. I know there are other institutions I can use but few of them will let me maintain so many linked accounts. Alliant, for example, starts to have issues after you've linked up 25 external accounts.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Credit_Flavours — Sun, 03 May 2020 22:54:34 GMT

I experienced this yesterday when I tried to do a transfer from another CU. First noticed the limit was cut to $2500 and then on the confirmation page, there was language that suggested there would be a possible 5 days hold as against the instant availability we had become used to, which is really undesirable. Instantly cancelled the transaction and dragged myself to an ATM to cash the amount I wanted to transfer inward. A very inconvenient change I must say but this might be another fallout of all the COVID-19

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

core — Sun, 03 May 2020 23:07:43 GMT

@Credit_Flavours wrote:
A very inconvenient change I must say but this might be another fallout of all the COVID-19

Thanks for the reply. I'm very relieved it's not just me. Although the low limits I experienced are still rather confusing and different from what you experienced. Mine was like $202 incoming and $930 outgoing... odd numbers like that.

I was kinda wondering to myself if this could have anything to do with COVID-19 but I really couldn't think up a reason for how/why. Maybe some folks who were short on cash were abusing the previously generous policy and then leaving Penfed holding the bag when the transfer bounced?

By the way, I called Penfed once and asked what would happen if one of mine bounced after I had already transferred the money out. Because I had made a mistake that day and used the wrong account. The CSR said she couldn't cancel any outgoing transfers. Your transfer privileges would be removed for the rest of the statement cycle, but they wouldn't close your account or anything like that.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

VPExecutive — Sun, 03 May 2020 23:28:58 GMT

@core wrote:
@Credit_Flavours wrote:
A very inconvenient change I must say but this might be another fallout of all the COVID-19
Thanks for the reply. I'm very relieved it's not just me. Although the low limits I experienced are still rather confusing and different from what you experienced. Mine was like $202 incoming and $930 outgoing... odd numbers like that.

I was kinda wondering to myself if this could have anything to do with COVID-19 but I really couldn't think up a reason for how/why. Maybe some folks who were short on cash were abusing the previously generous policy and then leaving Penfed holding the bag when the transfer bounced?

By the way, I called Penfed once and asked what would happen if one of mine bounced after I had already transferred the money out. Because I had made a mistake that day and used the wrong account. The CSR said she couldn't cancel any outgoing transfers. Your transfer privileges would be removed for the rest of the statement cycle, but they wouldn't close your account or anything like that.

People always have to ruin a good thing.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

DaveInAZ — Mon, 04 May 2020 00:01:46 GMT

@core wrote:
@Credit_Flavours wrote:
A very inconvenient change I must say but this might be another fallout of all the COVID-19
Thanks for the reply. I'm very relieved it's not just me. Although the low limits I experienced are still rather confusing and different from what you experienced. Mine was like $202 incoming and $930 outgoing... odd numbers like that.

I was kinda wondering to myself if this could have anything to do with COVID-19 but I really couldn't think up a reason for how/why. Maybe some folks who were short on cash were abusing the previously generous policy and then leaving Penfed holding the bag when the transfer bounced?

By the way, I called Penfed once and asked what would happen if one of mine bounced after I had already transferred the money out. Because I had made a mistake that day and used the wrong account. The CSR said she couldn't cancel any outgoing transfers. Your transfer privileges would be removed for the rest of the statement cycle, but they wouldn't close your account or anything like that.

I just checked my account, been a member since May 2017 and have Share, Premium Savings and HELOC. I had a $50k limit, I still have that for Premium Savings, but they have a 6 business day hold specific to that account, so still $50k there, For my Share account only $2500.00 and I got that language about a "possible" 5 day hold. For my Heloc the limit is my payoff balance, which makes sense.

I can't believe Covid-19 has anything to do with it, they likely got burned too much. Doesn't really affect me, I would never use Penfed as a hub account, I don't trust them to not pull something funny. I still have memories of their limits on first 6 months of membership, which to me amounts to: "You're a crook to us until you prove yourself innocent".

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

core — Mon, 04 May 2020 00:34:29 GMT

@DaveInAZ wrote:
For my Share account only $2500.00 and I got that language about a "possible" 5 day hold. For my Heloc the limit is my payoff balance, which makes sense.

It never occurred to me that the limit would be different between share savings and say money market savings. But I just checked it and indeed it is different! My screwy limit for checking is shared with the limit for money market savings (using some of one also decreases the limit on the other). But for share savings I have a separate $2500 limit in either direction and indeed the funds were placed on hold when I tested it.

So to get around the limit all you have to do is use another type of account if you have one there. You still have to wait for the hold so it's rather pointless for incoming funds except it does gain you a day and some convenience. But it works slick for getting funds out of there above your daily checking limit if the funds are already available. Whoever thought of this new system of limits wasn't thinking it through I guess.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Guyatthebeach — Mon, 04 May 2020 01:49:25 GMT

I noticed that too when I logged in. I only have 2 credit card accounts, a saving account, and a few CD's with Penfed. In my opinion, it sounds Penfed lowered the transfer amount to minimize their risk. I have another credit union that has the same ACH transfer limit of $2500 per day. It's honestly not a big deal for me as I only don't do transfers that big with Penfed.

Guyatthebeach

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

M_Smart007 — Mon, 04 May 2020 14:12:59 GMT

"maybe stuff is just shut down for maintenance or something?"

I just logged in ..look's like $50K is the max inbound transfer

outbound max is $25K

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

core — Mon, 04 May 2020 14:30:32 GMT

I made several transfers yesterday and used up virtually all of my limits. But today the limits did NOT reset like they usually would have. This is very bad news. If the limit applies to the whole month that would be absolutely ridiculous. Even if you now have to wait 5 days for your limits to reset, that severely cripples your ability to use your accounts.

I'd just like to point out again that it seems like the worst of the changes are affecting checking accounts (and also money market savings for whatever reason). I get the impression most people reporting $2500 limits above are talking about their share savings account. But you'll run afoul of FRB regulation D long before you're able to do much repeat volume with your savings account anyway.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

DaveInAZ — Mon, 04 May 2020 17:45:28 GMT

@DaveInAZ wrote:
I just checked my account, been a member since May 2017 and have Share, Premium Savings and HELOC. I had a $50k limit, I still have that for Premium Savings, but they have a 6 business day hold specific to that account, so still $50k there, For my Share account only $2500.00 and I got that language about a "possible" 5 day hold. For my Heloc the limit is my payoff balance, which makes sense.

I just added an Access America checking account this morning, I got a targeted email offering a $200 bonus for opening checking and depositing $1200 within 90 days (+ make 5 debit transaction), obviously targeting my stimulus payment. Same $2500 ACH limit on the new checking and when I pulled $500 from my local CU it's on hold. Funny thing is I did the initial funding with my PayPal 2% MC for the max of $500 for an extra $10 in CC rewards (posted as a purchase), and that was credited & available immediately but a $500 pull from an account I've pulled from for years now gets a hold?]. Penfed is getting weird.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Anonymous — Mon, 04 May 2020 19:41:29 GMT

@core wrote:
I've been using Penfed as an ACH hub for years and have always had a $5k daily limit. But today when I logged in I had some screwy-low limit for incoming transfers, and also an odd lower number than usual for outgoing transfers. It no longer lists amount processed for the day like it used to. The worst part is I didn't immediately get an available balance credit for my incoming transfer that I put in. That's the whole point of using Penfed... they float you the cash and you can immediately transfer it elsewhere without waiting for it to clear.

Has anyone else noticed these changes? It's Sunday so maybe stuff is just shut down for maintenance or something? But maybe they've placed me in the penalty box because I do quite a few transfers per month via that account and never leave much cash in there. So I'm starting to get worried. I know there are other institutions I can use but few of them will let me maintain so many linked accounts. Alliant, for example, starts to have issues after you've linked up 25 external accounts.

Good thread! Noticed that I had a similar situation that still hasn't transferred and it is a whole $66.00. Did it the end of April and it still is somewhere in never never land? The originating bank shows it processed. Glad this subject came up as maybe financials are changing the way they handle funds transferred due to the times we are in? Sure would like to know if that is the case.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

CivalV — Mon, 04 May 2020 21:50:58 GMT

Yes. I made 3 ACH transfers and it was on hold for about 8 days. It was extremely frustrating smh

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

CivalV — Mon, 04 May 2020 21:52:16 GMT

I should add that my Daily limit is $5k, which is odd because I don't use the account often and have never even put $5k into the account.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Credit_Flavours — Mon, 04 May 2020 22:34:57 GMT

@CivalV wrote:
I should add that my Daily limit is $5k, which is odd because I don't use the account often and have never even put $5k into the account.

My Limit on my share savings with a balance of $3 is still $5k but its the Access America that's been slashed to $2.5k.

Funny thing is that I use them a lot to settle most of my credit card payments, not because they settle ACH quickly, which they don't but because of the instant availability of cash I pull from external accounts. (I can't be convinced to put all my household income in any one bank no matter what FDIC says).

Usually, we send like $3k monthly of DW's paycheck via DD, while we send the rest of her's to another bank and split mine between 2 banks and do our business transactions with other banks. So the fact that I could pull on any of those funds almost immediately was my greatest incentive for keeping my Penfed relationship even when I had no credit product with them. So this is sort of a big deal to me.

Will definitely have to slash the DD to just the $500 required to keep the account free, if this change is permanent and put more in say a BOA or Chase where the ACH from card companies are settled way faster than Penfed.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

DaveInAZ — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:07:48 GMT

@Credit_Flavours wrote:
@CivalV wrote:
I should add that my Daily limit is $5k, which is odd because I don't use the account often and have never even put $5k into the account.
My Limit on my share savings with a balance of $3 is still $5k but its the Access America that's been slashed to $2.5k.

Funny thing is that I use them a lot to settle most of my credit card payments, not because they settle ACH quickly, which they don't but because of the instant availability of cash I pull from external accounts. (I can't be convinced to put all my household income in any one bank no matter what FDIC says).

Usually, we send like $3k monthly of DW's paycheck via DD, while we send the rest of her's to another bank and split mine between 2 banks and do our business transactions with other banks. So the fact that I could pull on any of those funds almost immediately was my greatest incentive for keeping my Penfed relationship even when I had no credit product with them. So this is sort of a big deal to me.

Will definitely have to slash the DD to just the $500 required to keep the account free, if this change is permanent and put more in say a BOA or Chase where the ACH from card companies are settled way faster than Penfed.

Just to be clear, Penfed doesn't put any limit or hold on payroll direct deposits? It's just the reduced limits & holds on ACH transfers into Penfed you don't like?

And I DO think it's very unprofessional for Penfed to place these limits & holds with no announcement to members, you just find out when you try to place a new ACH transfer. They should have sent out an announcement to all members: "Dear valued member, due to (whatever lame excuse they want to use), effective xx/xx/xx, you will have a new limit of $Xxx.00 on ACH transfer from external bank accounts into your Penfed account'.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Credit_Flavours — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:22:45 GMT

@DaveInAZ wrote:
@Credit_Flavours wrote:
@CivalV wrote:
I should add that my Daily limit is $5k, which is odd because I don't use the account often and have never even put $5k into the account.
My Limit on my share savings with a balance of $3 is still $5k but its the Access America that's been slashed to $2.5k.

Funny thing is that I use them a lot to settle most of my credit card payments, not because they settle ACH quickly, which they don't but because of the instant availability of cash I pull from external accounts. (I can't be convinced to put all my household income in any one bank no matter what FDIC says).

Usually, we send like $3k monthly of DW's paycheck via DD, while we send the rest of her's to another bank and split mine between 2 banks and do our business transactions with other banks. So the fact that I could pull on any of those funds almost immediately was my greatest incentive for keeping my Penfed relationship even when I had no credit product with them. So this is sort of a big deal to me.

Will definitely have to slash the DD to just the $500 required to keep the account free, if this change is permanent and put more in say a BOA or Chase where the ACH from card companies are settled way faster than Penfed.
Just to be clear, Penfed doesn't put any limit or hold on payroll direct deposits? It's just the reduced limits & holds on ACH transfers into Penfed you don't like?
And I DO think it's very unprofessional for Penfed to place these limits & holds with no announcement to members, you just find out when you try to place a new ACH transfer. They should have sent out an announcement to all members: "Dear valued member, due to (whatever lame excuse they want to use), effective xx/xx/xx, you will have a new limit of $Xxx.00 on ACH transfer from external bank accounts into your Penfed account'.

Exactly, in response to the bolded.

I know several gurus here have more cards than newbies like us, but having almost 30 credit accounts between us, its was just way simpler to use Penfed as the hub knowing I could pull whatever shortfall I have from any of the other external accounts within seconds. Obviously, it could still be done by manually pulling cash from the ATMs and depositing with Penfed for instant access which is what I ended up doing the last time but it's just so inconvenient.

To be fair to them, I had always thought of this benefit as being very risky on their part, as if just 10,000 members had their ACH with an average of $2k returned unpaid in 1 year, that will be a pretty chum change and shareholders won't be too happy.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

Anonymous — Tue, 05 May 2020 02:25:52 GMT

@Credit_Flavours wrote:
@DaveInAZ wrote:
@Credit_Flavours wrote:
@CivalV wrote:
I should add that my Daily limit is $5k, which is odd because I don't use the account often and have never even put $5k into the account.
My Limit on my share savings with a balance of $3 is still $5k but its the Access America that's been slashed to $2.5k.

Funny thing is that I use them a lot to settle most of my credit card payments, not because they settle ACH quickly, which they don't but because of the instant availability of cash I pull from external accounts. (I can't be convinced to put all my household income in any one bank no matter what FDIC says).

Usually, we send like $3k monthly of DW's paycheck via DD, while we send the rest of her's to another bank and split mine between 2 banks and do our business transactions with other banks. So the fact that I could pull on any of those funds almost immediately was my greatest incentive for keeping my Penfed relationship even when I had no credit product with them. So this is sort of a big deal to me.

Will definitely have to slash the DD to just the $500 required to keep the account free, if this change is permanent and put more in say a BOA or Chase where the ACH from card companies are settled way faster than Penfed.
Just to be clear, Penfed doesn't put any limit or hold on payroll direct deposits? It's just the reduced limits & holds on ACH transfers into Penfed you don't like?
And I DO think it's very unprofessional for Penfed to place these limits & holds with no announcement to members, you just find out when you try to place a new ACH transfer. They should have sent out an announcement to all members: "Dear valued member, due to (whatever lame excuse they want to use), effective xx/xx/xx, you will have a new limit of $Xxx.00 on ACH transfer from external bank accounts into your Penfed account'.
Exactly, in response to the bolded.

I know several gurus here have more cards than newbies like us, but having almost 30 credit accounts between us, its was just way simpler to use Penfed as the hub knowing I could pull whatever shortfall I have from any of the other external accounts within seconds. Obviously, it could still be done by manually pulling cash from the ATMs and depositing with Penfed for instant access which is what I ended up doing the last time but it's just so inconvenient.

To be fair to them, I had always thought of this benefit as being very risky on their part, as if just 10,000 members had their ACH with an average of $2k returned unpaid in 1 year, that will be a pretty chum change and shareholders won't be too happy.

PenFed doesn't answer to shareholders, that's the point of a CU. They have to answer to their members but I imagine that PenFed probably had a pretty good handle on this up until now. I noticed that Alliant and Langley took forever too when I was moving my stimulus around. DCU and my bank are still next day though. Not instant but better than the others.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

joltdude — Tue, 05 May 2020 04:39:46 GMT

Actually Reg D is waived right now... you should be able to transfer in or out of savings or MM with no 6 transaction limit right or penalty right now

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy?

core — Tue, 05 May 2020 04:56:40 GMT

@joltdude wrote:
Actually Reg D is waived right now... you should be able to transfer in or out of savings or MM with no 6 transaction limit right or penalty right now

Wow, I hadn't heard that. I looked it up and you're right... they waived that late last month.

But... I have a hard time believing there's a little checkbox at every bank that says "Reg D applies today" that they can just turn off overnight without some small software changes that take time? I'm thinking at some banks at least, you might find some unpleasant accidental consequences. And I sure wouldn't want to have to call a bank during this whole mess.

Re: Did Penfed change their ACH transfer policy? POLICY REVERSAL???

Credit_Flavours — Wed, 06 May 2020 12:49:15 GMT

Just to update this thread, while doing my daily check-up on accounts, I tried to make a transfer through DW's account and her ACH limit had been reverted back to $5k for both her share savings and Access America. Logged out of it, to check mine and to my surprise, the limit had now been increased to $10k. I tried a transfer and the "5 days hold" language was gone.

Did a little transfer of $7.15 from DCU and I got instant availability. So I guess all is well that ends well. I guess they must have gotten more than a handful of unpleasant feedback or maybe it was just a glitch.