A big mess at the end of March 2024 on bank transfers, your salary may be affected

Don’t panic if your March salary doesn’t appear in your bank account this Monday, April 1st. It won’t even be an April Fool’s joke from your employer. In fact, due to the Easter holidays this year at the end of March, your salary will be blocked mainly in the European interbank system. As reported by the website Le Journal du Gique, the Target 2 system, the payment system linked to the Eurosystem, will be disrupted for longer than usual.

Four consecutive days of disruption

Normally, the service operated by the European Central Bank is interrupted on weekends and most public holidays. Next weekend, service will exceptionally be interrupted for four consecutive days: Good Friday (as indicated on the ECB website), which is a public holiday in Germany, and in certain border departments (Bas-Rhin, Haute-Rhin and Moselle), Saturday. And also a public holiday, due to Sunday (like all Saturdays) and Easter Monday. Therefore, all transfers registered between the evening of Thursday 28 March and Monday 1 April will only be properly processed during the day of Tuesday 2 April.

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Therefore, if your employer authorizes salary payments during this exceptionally long interruption period, they may not actually be paid into your account until Tuesday, April 2. This also applies to all your transfers (payment of rent, alimony, compensation benefits, payment of bills etc.), whether guaranteed or not, and which will be initiated during this period. So you should be careful if you must make payments during this interruption period.

Instant transfers and within the same bank remain possible

On the other hand, if interbank transfers are cut off for four consecutive days, the same is not the case for money transfers within the same banking institution. So you have the option of depositing or withdrawing savings from your savings accounts or supplementing your children’s accounts if they are with the same banking institution as your issuing account.

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Finally, for the most urgent payments, it is always possible to use the instant transfer system established in most banking institutions. They allow funds to be issued or received in just a few seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from an account located in the Euro Zone. Sometimes free, these instant transfers are usually charged (between a few tens of cents and one euro). A new European regulation will force banking institutions to release them by October 30, 2024.