Living in India, this has always stuck me as very odd with the U.S. that there are no quick ways to transfer money between bank accounts. In India, payments hav

Living in India, this has always stuck me as very odd with the U.S. that there are no quick ways to transfer money between bank accounts. In India, payments have long been done in hourly batches six days a week (with time limits) in a system called NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) and for higher amounts, an almost real time system called RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement). A few years ago, a consortium of private and public entities setup IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) that allowed instant payments (just a few seconds) 24x7 with a cell phone number and a bank provided ID (called MMID). Then came UPI (Unified Payments Interface), which improved on this and provided for user chosen IDs (like name@bank) as an easier way to exchange information and transact. In both cases, there's no need to reveal the underlying bank account number, branch and other details. The latter two systems have been criticized for how they work (mainly that they don't maintain audit trails and that they could be used to launder money). It's good to see the U.S. system improving, but this needs to get a lot better to be comparative to other places.