Are they instant as I had two people send me money yesterday, but it has not yet arrived and I want to post them what they bought.

Some are instant [ish] others take ages [4-5 days]

No, can be a few days i think while the banks "hold" your funds until it clears

Hold = make some interest off it while its in their "Clearing" account

depends on the banks. some of them now have an agreement to clear electronic transfers in 2hrs, others that aren't part of the agreement stick to the normal 3 days.

And some do a bit of both… like Alliance and Leicester will do a fast transfer for amounts up to £30, but it takes 3 days for anything above that.

Not normally instant.

All depends on banks security process.

Wifey works for snatch west says anything over 750 would go as next day.

Faster Payments Service apparently
http://www.natwest.com/microsites/personal/faster_payments_service/default.asp

If the 2 banks are both participating, it will go straight away

Okay thanks very much.

uplink's almost got it- but there's other restrictions, nike nimrod and funkynick say. HBOS is £500 or under goes FPS where possible, over that goes BACS (3 days).

What banks are the payments between and I'll let you know roughly how long.

Most banks participate in Faster Payments now so should be instant. Depending on amount (usually 5k min) the bank that is making the payment can hold the payment for a few days to carry out security checks.

I get some right away or some take a few days.

There are some exceptions though mind.

Lloyds TSB are supposed to be signed up to Faster Payments yet take 4 days to transfer from Mrs RopeyReignRider's account to my HSBC account, for example.

Banks may not have fully enabled their FP system yet though, some are receive-only at present or haven't rolled out the service to their full suite of account types yet.

If it's gone by BACS, it'll take three business days, or four if it's going to a building society as they use a central account and route the funds from there using the reference field.

More info here

LLoyds TSB are supposed to be fully signed up to it though.

Faster Payments is a result of an FSA directive, just that a few banks are dragging their heels. ..

As said above, if both banks have signed up for the Faster Payments system, then payment will be instantaneous. I received a payment on Sunday morning which arrived immediately into my account – both banks were participants of FP. If either is not part of FP, it will take 3-4 working days.

You could try transfering £1000 to my account, I'll let you know when it appears, I'll transfer it back, promise.

jukeboxs, as's been said earlier it's just not that simple.