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The Clock Desk / The settlement clock
Working days
The calendar money moves on
Payments do not move on the account's clock or on yours. They move on a working-day calendar: a cut-off each day, no movement at weekends, and no movement on a public holiday in the relevant country. Sample E turns a stated one working day into 87 hours and a half of waiting.
Account spec
- Stated
- 1 working day
- Operator cut-off
- 16:00 UTC
- Requested
- Friday 17:30 local
- Elapsed
- 87 h 30 m
the boundaryThe instant the account's day is measured from. On the samples it is 00:00 UTC, which is a different wall-clock moment for every reader.
the countdownWhat a window is measured from and whether day one counts. A window advertised as 30 days delivers 29 days 23 hours 59 minutes on the sample.
the calendarThe working-day clock money moves on, with its cut-off, its weekends and its holidays. One working day covered 87 hours 30 minutes on the sample.
Direct answerPayment time is counted in working days on a calendar with cut-offs and holidays, not in elapsed hours. On the sample, a withdrawal requested on Friday at 17:30 against a 16:00 cut-off with the following Monday a public holiday is processed on Tuesday, which is one working day from the operator's side and 87 hours 30 minutes of waiting from the applicant's.
Sample E - one working day, 87 h 30 mcut-off 16:00 UTC each working day
requested Friday 17:30 local (UTC+1), which is 16:30 UTC
position against cut-off 16:30 > 16:00, so it misses Friday altogether
next working day Monday
Monday is a public holiday
next working day Tuesday, processed at 09:00 local (08:00 UTC)
elapsed
Friday 17:30 -> Saturday 17:30 24 h 00 m
Saturday -> Sunday 24 h 00 m
Sunday -> Monday 24 h 00 m
Monday 17:30 -> Tuesday 09:00 15 h 30 m
total 87 h 30 m
one working day, 87.5 hours
compare a Tuesday 09:00 request inside the cut-off: 24 h 00 m
ratio 87.5 / 24 = 3.65
Four things the working-day clock is made of
Element
The daily cut-off
One instant each working day after which nothing enters the batch. On the sample it is 16:00 UTC, which is 17:00 local for a UTC+1 applicant, so the reader's own evening is already too late for that day.
- clock
- operator's, daily
- sample
- 16:00 UTC
Element
The weekend
Two days on which the batch does not run in most markets. They are not two elapsed days of processing; they are two days of nothing, which is why a Friday-evening request and a Wednesday-morning request differ by a factor of three.
- clock
- calendar
- effect
- 48 h of no movement
Element
The public holiday
A holiday in the operator's country, the receiving bank's country or the applicant's country can each stop the batch. Which one applies is a property of the rail, not of the request.
- clock
- three calendars
- stated by
- the rail
Element
The processing window
The hour of the day the batch runs. A request accepted on Monday before the cut-off can still wait until Monday afternoon, because acceptance and processing are different instants on the same day.
- clock
- operator's, daily
- sample
- 09:00 local
Elapsed time against working days
The distinction matters because the two clocks disagree by up to a factor of three, and both are described with the word "day". A page that says "within one working day" is making a statement about a calendar; a page that says "within 24 hours" is making a statement about elapsed time. On the sample, no page states both.
The same request on four days of the weekcut-off 16:00 UTC daily, weekends not a working day
requested Monday 10:00 accepted Monday, processed Monday 09:00 next batch -> Tuesday 09:00
elapsed 23 h 00 m, 1 working day
requested Thursday 10:00 accepted Thursday, processed Friday 09:00
elapsed 23 h 00 m, 1 working day
requested Friday 10:00 accepted Friday, processed Friday 09:00 (already past) -> Monday 09:00
elapsed 71 h 00 m, 1 working day
requested Friday 17:30 misses Friday, Monday is a holiday -> Tuesday 09:00
elapsed 87 h 30 m, 1 working day
the same sentence, 23 h to 87 h 30 m
- Find the cut-off time and its zone before you find the stated duration. The cut-off decides which day you are in; the duration only decides the hour on that day.
- Find whether the duration is stated in working days or in hours. If it is working days, count the weekends and any holiday between now and then.
- Check whether a holiday in the operator's country, your country or the receiving bank's country applies. On the sample a single Monday holiday added 15 hours 30 minutes.
- Treat the recorded request time, not your memory of it, as the start. It is on the operator's clock and it is the one a query will be answered from.
- Do not read a stated working day as a promise of a specific date. It is a promise about a calendar you cannot see from the page.
Where the rails themselves are covered. Which payment methods exist, how they clear and what each costs is the payment-rails desk (cycle 13 of the series); the normal withdrawal flow is the withdrawal-path desk (cycle 4). This page is only the calendar those rails run on.