Ally Bank's New Account Center with New System for Transferring Funds

When you log into your Ally Bank account, you will likely notice many changes. Readers mentioned these changes yesterday in this forum thread. The menus are a little different. I did an online chat with an Ally CSR this morning, and the CSR stated that over the weekend they had a system-wide upgrade, and that some functions are still updating. The most important change appears to be the new system for bank-to-bank ACH transfers. In the past, Ally had their own custom system for making bank-to-bank transfers. The new system uses Cashedge. I asked the CSR why Ally made this change. Here's the reply I received:

Turnaround time is now a little quicker; our old system would take 3-5 business days for electronic transfers. The new system now takes 2-3 business days.

I am a little skeptical of this reply. For those who had accounts at HSBC and FNBO Direct, you will likely have bad memories of Cashedge since the service was slow with transfers taking at least 3 days to complete with 2 days in which the funds were not earning interest. It appears Ally's transfers may be a little quicker. Ally's documentation is showing a 2-day delay. If the transfer is initiated by 7:30pm ET, it's showing that the source account will be debited before the start-of-business on the next business day. One business day after that, the destination account will then be credited before the start-of-business day. In terms of holds, the documentation states that "Ally deposits are generally available for withdrawal within 2 business days."

For example, if you initiate a transfer at Ally before 7:30PM ET on Monday:

• Source account should be debited before the start-of-business on Tuesday
• Destination account should be credited before start-of-business on Wednesday

You'll want to avoid initiating transfers on Thursdays and Fridays since the transfer delay will include the weekend days. For example, if you initiate a transfer before 7:30pm ET on Thursday:

• Source account should be debited before the start-of-business on Friday
• Destination account should be credited before start-of-business on Monday

I'm testing this out now. I've initiated both an inbound and outbound transfer within my Ally account.

Update 10/20/2010: Here are the results of the transfers that I initiated at Ally Bank. I initiated an inbound and outbound transfer at Ally on Sunday night.

For the ACH outbound transfer from Ally to my Capital One Checking:

• Debited on Tuesday at Ally
• Credited on Wednesday at Capital One

For the ACH inbound transfer from Chase checking to Ally:

• Debited on Tuesday at Chase
• Credited on Wednesday at Ally
• Amount credited is shown as available on Wednesday at Ally

In addition to the new Cashedge service, the menus to initiate transfers are a little different. As was stated in the forum thread, the look and feel of the website is different. It does seem to take a few more clicks to initiate a transfer.

While I made the transfers, I noticed the documentation which describes the transfer limits. Their service will show you the remaining amount that can be transferred for today and for the month.

The documentation showed that the outbound limits are $150,000 per day and $600,000 per month. The inbound limits are $250,000 per day and $1,000,000 per month. This documentation appears embedded in the Cashedge service, so I don't think I can provide a link to it.

If you notice other changes or if you have opinions on these changes, please leave a comment.