When it is late
Cut-offs, weekends, holidays at either end, and the difference between sent and settled.
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Five steps from instruction to arrival. One step carries no figure: the hatching marks where the money leaves and is not drawn to scale, because there is no figure to draw. Nothing here adds them up, since an amount you cannot see is not an amount you can subtract. Bars here are days remaining, not money: the one that took longest has no stated duration at all.
Cut-Offs
Banks stop accepting same-day instructions at a time of day, and missing it by minutes costs a day.
Weekends and the Two Calendars
Two countries have two sets of working days, and a payment only moves when both ends are open.
Public Holidays at the Far End
A national holiday you have never heard of stops a payment for as long as it lasts.
Value Date Against Credit Date
The day a payment is treated as settled and the day it appears in your account are not always the same day.
Held for Checks
Payments are stopped for review routinely, the reasons are rarely given, and the duration is rarely stated.
The Payment That Is Late Every Month
A recurring delay has a cause that can be found, and usually the cause is a date somebody chose once.
What Late Costs You
Interest, overdraft charges, a missed bill and the hours spent chasing, none of which anybody reimburses.
Asking Where It Is
The question of where a payment is has one useful addressee, and it is not your own bank.