Halifax has explained its payment rules after a customer had an issue receiving a DWP payment.
The person contacted the bank over social media as the funds had not yet appeared in their account. Writing on February 4 at just after noon, they said: « Not received a payment from DWP today. »
They added that the DWP had « definitely sent it », asking further if there was any issues with Bacs payments at the time.
A Bacs payment is when a bank makes a payment to another bank within the UK. ‘Bacs’ stands for Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services.
Responding to the customer, Halifax set out an important timeframe rule for payments, saying: « Payments can be credited anywhere between midnight and 4am. »
The bank provided further advice in the event that the funds still hadn’t arrived after this period, saying: « If the payment doesn’t arrive, please contact the DWP. »
There are no bank holidays in February, so DWP benefit and state pension payment should go out as normal. Universal Credit is paid on a monthly basis while the state pension goes out in four weekly instalments.
If your DWP payment has not arrived, you may want to check the payment date on your award notice. In the event a payment is due on a weekend, it may be delayed until the next working day.
MPs approved this week for benefits to increase 1.7% from April while the state pension will go up 4.1%. This will increase the full new state pension from the current £221.20 a week to £230.25 a week.
Payments for the additional state pension, which some claimants get on top of their basic state pension, will go up 1.7% from April.
An important deadline is coming up in April. People paying National Insurance contributions can currently top up over an extended period, but only until the end of the current tax year.
You can usually do so only up to six years ago, but at present you can top up as far back as the 2006/2007 tax year.
Figures from HMRC showed people topping up have made more than 37,000 payments through the service. The biggest state pension increase for a claimant was £113.76 a week, or £5,915.52 a year.
This adds up to an extra £118,300 if the person claims their state pension for 20 years, though of course they would likely get more as state pension payments increase each April in line with the triple lock.
You can do a check to see how much state pension you are on track to receive by using the state pension forecast tool on the Government website.
