I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you. I do work in the banking sector, but not for RBS - however, my account is with them. If my payday falls on a Monday, the balance shows that it is available from Saturday, though the actual debit date shows the Monday's date. What has happened here is that 24th December was a Saturday, so is not a 'true' banking day (it's only been recent times that banks open on Saturdays). In my own company, to avoid clogging up online transactiions, scheduled payments occur during the daily computer batch processing - as this wouldn't run on Saturdays and Sundays (nor Bank Holidays which fall at the begiining of the week), the process is done on the Friday overnight process.