Why all bank closed at weekend?

Since Saturday became non working day bank have been the only closed service on weekend. Although in that accelerated world retail purchasing is shifted to weekend. Paying cashless seller only can reach the money in the next working day at best case. This statement also through to payment card transactions too because in case of card usage, only authorization happens. Financial fulfillment happens some day later.

Beside retail the stock market also suffer significant barrier about financial services bound to working hours. In a week there is only a tight day, when all stock markets are closed in the world. The need of cover charge or profit taking can happen always during active trading. The attitude that there can be banking only in working hours was understandable in the age of paper based processing. But now nearly all financial institute related development is about Straight Trough Processing (STP). The implementation of ISO 20022 conform message standard (e.g. SEPA) allows interbank settlement to electronically submitted transactions if using appropriate limits.

The cover needs of a bank can be estimated and the inspection of balance of cover account can be automated. Using these tools automated clearing and settlement can be done without manual intervention with high level of safety. Related to implementation only the following questions come up:

• What would be the interest of a bank to fulfil automated financial transactions over the working hours?

-> The answer is easy: for extra profit!

• What will happen if banks don’t want to handle over working time transactions?

-> There will be service provider who will exploit that niche, because this is a real need.