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Limitation in online payee names?

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jerrymr

19 Oct, 2009 05:25 AM

I was entering a new online payee name, and I received an error message about the name being invalid. I shortened the name until MD accepted it, at 32 characters long. The name did not contain anything except letters and spaces. Is there a 32 character limit to payee names? If so, can this be increased?

Thanks,
Jerry

1. 1 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Oct, 2009 06:20 PM

   

   Hi Jerry

   The number of chars in the payee name is limited by your financial institution. Some allow for longer names though many do limit to 32 chars. I am afraid this one is out of our hands.

   Sincerely

   Ben Spencer

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2. 2 Posted by jerrymr on 19 Oct, 2009 06:35 PM

   

   Fair enough. How about a more explicit error message then? It just says the name is invalid without giving a hint as to why. Something like "Invalid name: there is a XX character limit for this financial institution".

   Hm, wait a minute. I'm not in front of my home computer right now, but it occurs to me: when you set up a payee, it isn't tied to a specific financial institution, is it? The error message I get is displayed when I am setting up a payee, not when I am making a payment. So how does it know what the limit is going to be?

   Or are you saying it's a lowest common denominator thing, that MD limits payees to 32 characters in order that they'll be accepted at any possible financial institution?

   Thanks,
   Jerry

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3. 3 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Oct, 2009 07:10 PM

   

   Hi Jerry

   The online payee list is associated with each account. When you create an online payee in MD that is for a particular bank account. The process of creating a payee involves sending a "create-payee" message to your bank. Your bank then creates and manages a list of payees on their side and MD mirrors it. You can use this same payee list when you log into your banks website and initiate an online bill payment from there. The error message that MD displayes when the create payee fails is the error message returned by the bank.

   I am sorry for the confusion.

   Sincerely

   Ben Spencer

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4. 4 Posted by jerrymr on 19 Oct, 2009 07:26 PM

   

   Thanks for the explanation Ben. As a programmer myself, I've more than once encountered a situation where a 3rd party API frustratingly limits my options for what information the client program can find out when an error occurs in that 3rd party library.

   -Jerry

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5. Scott Meehan closed this discussion on 18 Sep, 2013 02:04 PM.