Britannia

If you pay money into your Account by cheque, the cheque will be put through a clearing process. The following timescales will apply. We call the day we receive the cheque ‘Day 0’ and subsequent days are called Day 1, Day 2 and so on.

On Day 0 you will start to earn interest.
On Day 6 you will be able to withdraw the funds (if your Account allows withdrawals).
By the end of Day 6 you can be certain that the money is yours and cannot be reclaimed without your permission (as long as you have not deliberately committed fraud). However up until the end of Day 6 a cheque may still bounce and the money may be reclaimed from your Account. Up until the beginning of Day 6 you will not be able to withdraw any money against the cheque.

Only bank working days are counted when calculating these timescales and Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays in England are not bank working days. Also bear in mind that if a cheque is paid in on a Saturday, Day 0 will be the following Monday (although interest will accrue from the Saturday).

Different timescales would apply if you chose to deposit your cheque into an account with a clearing bank (it would be available for withdrawal on Day 4). However, we are not a clearing bank and so the above timescales apply.