This is less of an innovation and more of a “why the hell has it taken so long” moment, but I just had a wonderful online banking experience. Yes, I know, I should get out more.

I switched banks after reading our Online Banks Exposed feature a few months back, and since then I’ve had the hassle of transferring money back and forth between old and new accounts as various direct debits and bill payments came out of both before they were all switched across.

Now, I read a story back in May about online banks reducing the ludicrous three working day transaction period to a mere two hours, but I hadn’t actually noticed this happening as of yet. Those three days were an unfortunate necessity that apparently existed purely to gift the banks three days worth of interest while the currency was “in limbo”.

Today, however, I made a transfer from my old bank to my new one and noticed the confirmation message telling me the funds would be transferred immediately and would arrive in the destination account “today”.

Interesting, I thought, so I went straight to my new bank account to see how long it would take – two hours I assumed, no, hoped. Lo and behold, there in my account was every penny of the money I’d transferred mere seconds earlier.

It feels silly for me to hail this as a major breakthrough, as (given that it’s all automated anyway) it’s a service we should have had as soon as online banking began. But it’s here now, and I for one am not about to start complaining.