The Expert Podcast

There was a big problem with the Zell money transfer platform at Bank of America over the last few days where some customers did not have their deposits credited for several days. Some of these accounts went into the negative, where it looked like money was taken out, and there was no deposit for this Zell money. This is something that was attributed to a programming glitch at Bank of America. It didn't seem to affect the Zell payments at other banks like Wells Fargo or Chase, only Bank of America.

Consumers were understandably upset because these payments weren't crediting properly, even though the sender showed the money coming out of their account but not crediting the receiver's account.

Any type of transfer of funds has three parts: first of all, the initiation of the transfer; then the middleman or the broker holds the money; and finally, the broker transfers it to the new account. Anywhere along that pipeline, that flow of funds, there can be problems.

If there's a holdup somewhere, that's going to create a delay in the recipient getting the money or even a mismatch between the sending and receiving having the same amount. If there's a currency exchange involved, it must flow through properly.