Premium Bonds savers can check when their cashed-in Bonds will arrive in their bank account with a useful tool on the NS&I website.
The ‘Payment timeline calculator’ tool can be used to check when your funds will be arriving from a variety of accounts, including Premuim Bonds, Direct ISA, Direct Saver, Guaranteed Income Bonds and Guaranteed Growth Bonds.
The tool only applies for withdrawals organised online or over the phone. To use it to check on a Premium Bonds withdrawal – you first select ‘Premium Bonds’ under ‘NS&I account’.
Then you input the date when you gave the instruction for the withdrawal from NS&I. The final step is to select if you gave the instruction by 8pm or after 8pm on that day.
For example, if you select today’s date (September 23) as when you gave the instruction, and that you did so before 8pm, the tool says your funds should arrive on Wednesday, September 25.
If you indicate that you gave the instruction after 8pm today, your withdrawal will arrive on Thursday, September 26, according to the tool.
However, it’s important to note that this tool is only accurate when making a single withdrawal from one account – the rules are different if you are making multiple withdrawals at once.
A new Premium Bonds customer recently contacted NS&I as they had an issue when buying Bonds.
They asked: “Yesterday morning I transferred money for the first time into my Premium Bonds account via my online banking.
“The money has been taken out my bank as a ‘pending transaction’ – however, it has not gone into my Premium Bonds account as the balance hasn’t changed.”
NS&I asked them to clarify if they had put the account holder’s number as the payment reference when making the transfer.
The saver said: “Off the top of my head I don’t think I did, I remember seeing the instructions underneath and thinking it said account holders name so just put my name in.”
NS&I then state that this may be causing the probem. The group said: “If you have put your name instead of the holders number, the funds will be returned back to your bank.
“As soon as these have, you can then send the payment again with the holders number as the reference.”
The provider added that when a bank transfer is rejected, it should be sent back to the customer the next working day.
