> A normal wire transfer takes days even in europe.
That is somewhat true. Usually, a regular bank transfer does not take longer than 1-3 working days, mostly dependent on the institutions involved. Some banks take what feels like ages, some are done within 12 hours. But I have never experienced a transfer taking more than 36 hours, even internationally.
> The immidiate wire transfer exists only for a few years and costs money for initiating one for some banks.
SEPA Instant Payments we're a bit slow to roll out but are now catching up. They're now fairly widespread in terms of availability and cheap as well (the banks I have accounts at charge 50ct for an Instant Payment). Apparently there is also legislation in the works which would make instant payments the default by making them mandatory to support and capping their prices to the prices of non-instant SEPA payments [1]
> If you send a SEPA payment in Europe (most modern standard) it still takes one business day.
The most modern standard is SEPA Instant Credit Transfer [1] which does transfers in under 10 seconds. As of right now 57% of European payment service providers have joined with this scheme.
> There are both technological and non-technological reasons why you’re lucky to get an international wire done in less than 2-5 days
What are the technological reasons? I can transfer EUR between different euro countries in a matter of minutes. I thought that transfers were only ever slow because of regulations, AML etc.
> was there any currency that was also a payment method?
Every currency has, by definition, native payment methods. (If it doesn't, it's a settlement system, not a currency.) Most simply: physical cash.
Electronic payment systems are more complicated. In some countries, consumers can directly access them. In others, e.g. the United States, consumers indirectly access the settling-in-seconds and costing-pennies Fedwire system through banks.
> Bank wire transfers take up to three days in Europe
Maximum settlement time for SEPA transfers has been 1 business day since 2012.
with Faster Payments local transfers in the UK happen instantaneously. this has been the case for more than a decade. all banks participate and makes transferring funds in the UK a breeze.
to give you an example as to how fast this payment system is: i press pay and the money is received on the other end before the “successful transfer” screen pops-up on my device :)
for international payments i’ve noticed that it takes less time to receive money from the UK than it is for the receiving party to do a local transfer :)
>>we urgently need a law that makes wire transferees instant
Not sure about Germany, in the US this is a "technical" issue with the way consumer banking settlement is implemented. The notification of the intent to move the funds is almost instantaneous, the actual clearing takes days in some cases.
> Do transfers in the US really take three days, rather than a second or so?
They take about thirty minutes (Fedwire), given banks’ antifraud procedures. That said, I can wire moderate amounts (generally, less than $25,000) in seconds to known counterparties. There are also P2P rails like Venmo for small, instant transfers, though that’s a gross settlement system.
> an international wire done in less than 2-5 days
Uh... What? Every time I transfer money from my US bank account to my European bank account it's the same story. I put in the transfer at Chase, they go "Oh, sorry, the bank is closed now because it's after 3pm in New York, because that's apparently still a thing, but we'll transfer it first thing tomorrow morning."
At 6am New York time or whatever, their shitty batch job runs, and seconds later the money is available to me in my EU bank account.
A couple of hours later I then get an email from Chase telling me that the money has been sent and I should anticipate it in about three business days.
You don't know what you don't know, and most Americans simply have no idea how much US banks suck in an international comparison. SWIFT transfers are instant when your bank doesn't suck.
> it takes up to 5 days to receive a payment from USA in the EU and the sender pays 40$ for the wire transfer
Only if you use a wire transfer. Payment by credit card is instant and costs about 1% for the merchant and maybe another 1% in change fees if there is a currency conversion needed.
Same day transfers have been a reality for a long time (at least in The Netherlands), the fact that it takes 3 - 5 days here in the US is absolutely insane.
> International bank transactions take days or weeks and have very high fees.
Not really. I mean, I'm sure they can if you're moving millions, but small transactions are pretty much instant, even internationally, at least between modern banks in 2 countries. And the fees (if there even are any) are negligible.
Anyhow, that's my experience with my bank. I do know that American banks can be behind the times a bit...
SEPA wire transfers are actually not processed instantly. Banks are allowed to take up to one working day. Also, there are still numerous banks that charge a fee per transaction.
That is somewhat true. Usually, a regular bank transfer does not take longer than 1-3 working days, mostly dependent on the institutions involved. Some banks take what feels like ages, some are done within 12 hours. But I have never experienced a transfer taking more than 36 hours, even internationally.
> The immidiate wire transfer exists only for a few years and costs money for initiating one for some banks.
SEPA Instant Payments we're a bit slow to roll out but are now catching up. They're now fairly widespread in terms of availability and cheap as well (the banks I have accounts at charge 50ct for an Instant Payment). Apparently there is also legislation in the works which would make instant payments the default by making them mandatory to support and capping their prices to the prices of non-instant SEPA payments [1]
[1]: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023...
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