5 ms·

Do people really transfer that much money between them on a regular basis? Everyone was touting this as the selling point for some of the crypto currencies, but

by wowca 9y ago

Do people really transfer that much money between them on a regular basis? Everyone was touting this as the selling point for some of the crypto currencies, but I've always thought this is a non-issue. It's anecdotal but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I needed to transfer money to a person and not to a company.

axman6 9y ago
In Australia I transfer money to mates at least once a week. Makes going to the pub or out to dinner with friends so much easier.
theBobBob 9y ago
I do it all the time. Split a bill in a restaurant, repay someone for tickets that they bought for me, getting my flatmates to pay their share of the electric bill, paying a flatmate back for stuff that they picked up in the shops for me, loan someone money, get a loan to someone repaid, settling up after losing some money at poker. That's all within the last few weeks.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  Too much of that and it becomes taxable "income" in less advanced Democracies.
  - theBobBob 9y ago
    Really? Most of them were just various ways of splitting or repaying bills. The loan I will admit might be in a somewhat legally grey area.
    - jermaustin1 9y ago
      Traditionally only if you are charging an interest rate. There are a few rules in the US around lending money to non-family and expecting it to be paid back. IANAL, but I lend a lot of money, and this is what I've been told: If you give without the expectation it is typically just cash swapping hands in both directions. If you give money to a non family member and expect payments (with or without interest) OR to a family member and expect more than a rate that is defined at the IRS (<1%, IIRC), then the income is taxable. How they tax you on a no-interest loan to a non-family member, I have no idea.
      - aianus 9y ago
        A no-interest loan to a non-family member is taxed as income to the borrower. They impute an interest rate and say that amount is income since a free loan has a value. I'm not sure what exactly the rate they impute is or how large the loan has to be before they do this.
        jermaustin1 9y ago
        Ah, that is very similar to if the company you work for loans you money. I'm assuming the rate is probably the same as the max interest rate for a family loan.
  - papyrus23 9y ago
    Where on earth do you people live that receiving money for bills is "taxable income"?
stupidcar 9y ago
I find I need to do it quite often. Usually because, for speed or convenience, one person in a group has paid for something, like movie tickets, a round of drinks, or the bill a restaurant. Being able to do it easily and immediately makes it much less likely that you'll forget and require your friend either to take a loss, or deal with the awkwardness of chasing people for money. Right now we use Revolut for this, where possible. But that only works when the person receiving the cash also uses it, which isn't always the case. Having a more universal system that works for everyone would be very handy. One amusing thing about doing this approach is that, if you tend to split who does the principal payment evenly between your group of friends, then you realise you are rarely adding or removing funds from your Revolut account, you are just shuffling the same small sums back and forth between yourselves in order to keep things fair.
- bloodorange 9y ago
  I'll be off topic I'm afraid but I did want to share my perspective on this. I've lived in two cultures - one where people split the bill and one where one person just pays for it and someone else does the next time and so on. I much prefer the latter approach and among well meaning people, it is hassle free. I believe this is so because on the long run, the differences don't add up to much. I think, in some way, for me, it "shows more acceptance". I noticed that in the "split accurately" way, the greater resistance was not to pay for it but to have someone else pay for it - which in a way is disallowing someone from doing something small for you at that point of time. I dealt with this by proposing that the other person(s) could do it the next time etc. Some would find the proposal acceptable, some wouldn't. I found that when I "converted" people this way, it led to a more relaxed setting. Perhaps it was a problem with me - finding it difficult to accept money from friends for just a cup of coffee or a meal. For me that meant the relationship was not important and the 'book had to be closed and made to add up'... Of course, ultimately, these are only anecdotes - make of it what you will. (Ninja EDIT: Minor clarification)
  - rco8786 9y ago
    I’m gonna guess that the non-splitting country has a much flatter distribution of wealth?
Fredej 9y ago
How often do you have outlays for another person or give someone cash? The application can be used for any transaction. I usually use it if I've been out with some friends, then it's super easy to split the bill afterwards. Or if going shopping. Or if we share a taxi. Before we would either settle in cash or by trying to spend approximately the same. Now everything is done this way. That's atleast the way it works in Denmark.
madeofpalk 9y ago
This is the entire basis of Venmo. That's pretty popular.
c2h5oh 9y ago
Yes, in most of Europe it's a primary method of payment for anything people in US would use a cheque for (and most EU countries no longer have cheques at all). It is also often used for online purchases instead of cc, but that varies more per country. This is also how you pay your taxes and how vast majority of b2b payments are done. It's cheap, fast and simple - all you need is a name of account holder and account number.
- Too 9y ago
  I think you are misunderstanding. Swish is not traditional online bank transfer. Swish is like sms. You just need the phone number and the transfer is nearly instant. You would normally use it between friends, not for bills, b2b, taxes or paying in the supermarket.
alkonaut 9y ago
ALL the time. It's the replacement for cash. Looking at the past 6 months in my history: Split numerous restaurant bills. Paid someone who bought me a concert ticket. Bought some crap in a flea market. Bought a set of used wheels for my car. Bought a hotdog at the son's hockey game cafeteria. Bet the office sports tournament pool. Bought food in a hospital ward. Bought soda in a vending machine. Of these many happened multiple times and the clear majority were to individuals. During these 6 months I have not touched cash.
- Gogogogirl 9y ago
  Just asking, because I'm interested. Do you use it to pay Amazon? Your phone bill? You power provider? These are the areas I (Germany) currently use SEPA direct debit and would know how SEPA payments is used/replaced in other countries.
  - stefanfisk 9y ago
    utility bills and other regular stuff like that can be delivered electronically to your bank account in Sweden, such that you just log in and approve them. domestic online purchases are commonly paid by card, by a direct bank transfer that's done integrated as part of the checkout, or through Klarna where your just approve the purchase and then sort it out with them afterwards.
    - Gogogogirl 9y ago
      Nice!
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    No (well, not quite), for online purchases in web shops I either just use my card or I use "bank direct payment" which goes via the same authorization (BankID smartphone app) used for both the direct to phone-number payments (Swish) and for online banking in most/all banks and other major companies and authorities. I don't get paper bills for services such as phone/power/water/insurance/tv, they are delivered to my bank electronically and either paid automatically or I log in (BankID smartphone app) and confirm the payments. So the transfer system isn't used for bills, but the same authorization system is used for bills/banking and direct transfer.
parmesan 9y ago
Most people use it at least once a week, I use it around 2-5 times per week. It's awesome.
dazc 9y ago
My spanish teacher, for example, accepts all payments via a similar method. She has several skype students based all over the world and the traditional methods of transfer are expensive and unwieldy. There are also issues with Spain being rather anti people setting up simple businesses from home.
flexie 9y ago
A lot. In Denmark, if you go out with 3 friends, one pays the bill at the restaurant and the others transfer their share to him (with one swipe on the phone to the friends phone number or email address that you already have so no need to set up receivers). When you go to a birthday afterwards, one has bought the present and the others transfer their part to him. Danes send money to eachother daily.
ThomPete 9y ago
It's one of the biggest successes in the fintech sector. MobilePay in Denmark, Venmo, Cash, Paypal in the US most of the use debit card/bank accounts. One of the problems turning it into a business though is that the Durbin Amendment and national legislation have reduced the interchange fees so that it's hard/illegal to charge for use of the card. But it's a booming business that only just started.
darrenf 9y ago
Anecdotally I'm doing it at least once a week. Unlike several other respondents I rarely split a food bill (easier to just do that in the restaurant), but whenever there's advance tickets that need buying for transport or basically anything with an entrance fee (gig, play, sporting event, etc) then IME 100% of the time one person buys and the other attendees make them whole.
rorykoehler 9y ago
New technologies change behaviour. People are offended now when I offer cash to split the bill in Singapore. They immediate retort with "PayLah!" the name of the local version of this service.
ClassyJacket 9y ago
Multiple times a week. Like if you go out with friends and have them pay for something for you.
wastedhours 9y ago
To back up the rest of the anecdata here, I'd also say "all the time". Mainly for tickets, or dinner, or bills in a shared house. In fact, because most UK banks have pretty OK mobile apps, you can do it there and then, and with Faster Payments, it'll be in the recipient's account before the transaction actually comes out.
rco8786 9y ago
I transfer money to individuals multiple times a week via Square Cash or Venmo.
zmk_ 9y ago
I used the app four times since I moved to Sweden 2 years ago. I haven't touched cash, actually I am not sure how the current notes/coins (they changed them) look like. If you shop in stores/restaurants then you use cards mostly. Swish in my experience is for splitting bills (less common), at after work parties when someone buys beers and you pay them back, for very small vendors who do not want to bother with banks for getting CC terminals.

by wowca 9y ago

axman6 9y ago

In Australia I transfer money to mates at least once a week. Makes going to the pub or out to dinner with friends so much easier.

theBobBob 9y ago

I do it all the time. Split a bill in a restaurant, repay someone for tickets that they bought for me, getting my flatmates to pay their share of the electric bill, paying a flatmate back for stuff that they picked up in the shops for me, loan someone money, get a loan to someone repaid, settling up after losing some money at poker. That's all within the last few weeks.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
Too much of that and it becomes taxable "income" in less advanced Democracies.
- theBobBob 9y ago
  Really? Most of them were just various ways of splitting or repaying bills. The loan I will admit might be in a somewhat legally grey area.
  - jermaustin1 9y ago
    Traditionally only if you are charging an interest rate. There are a few rules in the US around lending money to non-family and expecting it to be paid back. IANAL, but I lend a lot of money, and this is what I've been told: If you give without the expectation it is typically just cash swapping hands in both directions. If you give money to a non family member and expect payments (with or without interest) OR to a family member and expect more than a rate that is defined at the IRS (<1%, IIRC), then the income is taxable. How they tax you on a no-interest loan to a non-family member, I have no idea.
    - aianus 9y ago
      A no-interest loan to a non-family member is taxed as income to the borrower. They impute an interest rate and say that amount is income since a free loan has a value. I'm not sure what exactly the rate they impute is or how large the loan has to be before they do this.
      - jermaustin1 9y ago
        Ah, that is very similar to if the company you work for loans you money. I'm assuming the rate is probably the same as the max interest rate for a family loan.
- papyrus23 9y ago
  Where on earth do you people live that receiving money for bills is "taxable income"?

stupidcar 9y ago

I find I need to do it quite often. Usually because, for speed or convenience, one person in a group has paid for something, like movie tickets, a round of drinks, or the bill a restaurant. Being able to do it easily and immediately makes it much less likely that you'll forget and require your friend either to take a loss, or deal with the awkwardness of chasing people for money. Right now we use Revolut for this, where possible. But that only works when the person receiving the cash also uses it, which isn't always the case. Having a more universal system that works for everyone would be very handy. One amusing thing about doing this approach is that, if you tend to split who does the principal payment evenly between your group of friends, then you realise you are rarely adding or removing funds from your Revolut account, you are just shuffling the same small sums back and forth between yourselves in order to keep things fair.

bloodorange 9y ago
I'll be off topic I'm afraid but I did want to share my perspective on this. I've lived in two cultures - one where people split the bill and one where one person just pays for it and someone else does the next time and so on. I much prefer the latter approach and among well meaning people, it is hassle free. I believe this is so because on the long run, the differences don't add up to much. I think, in some way, for me, it "shows more acceptance". I noticed that in the "split accurately" way, the greater resistance was not to pay for it but to have someone else pay for it - which in a way is disallowing someone from doing something small for you at that point of time. I dealt with this by proposing that the other person(s) could do it the next time etc. Some would find the proposal acceptable, some wouldn't. I found that when I "converted" people this way, it led to a more relaxed setting. Perhaps it was a problem with me - finding it difficult to accept money from friends for just a cup of coffee or a meal. For me that meant the relationship was not important and the 'book had to be closed and made to add up'... Of course, ultimately, these are only anecdotes - make of it what you will. (Ninja EDIT: Minor clarification)
- rco8786 9y ago
  I’m gonna guess that the non-splitting country has a much flatter distribution of wealth?

Fredej 9y ago

How often do you have outlays for another person or give someone cash? The application can be used for any transaction. I usually use it if I've been out with some friends, then it's super easy to split the bill afterwards. Or if going shopping. Or if we share a taxi. Before we would either settle in cash or by trying to spend approximately the same. Now everything is done this way. That's atleast the way it works in Denmark.

madeofpalk 9y ago

This is the entire basis of Venmo. That's pretty popular.

c2h5oh 9y ago

Yes, in most of Europe it's a primary method of payment for anything people in US would use a cheque for (and most EU countries no longer have cheques at all). It is also often used for online purchases instead of cc, but that varies more per country. This is also how you pay your taxes and how vast majority of b2b payments are done. It's cheap, fast and simple - all you need is a name of account holder and account number.

Too 9y ago
I think you are misunderstanding. Swish is not traditional online bank transfer. Swish is like sms. You just need the phone number and the transfer is nearly instant. You would normally use it between friends, not for bills, b2b, taxes or paying in the supermarket.

alkonaut 9y ago

ALL the time. It's the replacement for cash. Looking at the past 6 months in my history: Split numerous restaurant bills. Paid someone who bought me a concert ticket. Bought some crap in a flea market. Bought a set of used wheels for my car. Bought a hotdog at the son's hockey game cafeteria. Bet the office sports tournament pool. Bought food in a hospital ward. Bought soda in a vending machine. Of these many happened multiple times and the clear majority were to individuals. During these 6 months I have not touched cash.

Gogogogirl 9y ago
Just asking, because I'm interested. Do you use it to pay Amazon? Your phone bill? You power provider? These are the areas I (Germany) currently use SEPA direct debit and would know how SEPA payments is used/replaced in other countries.
- stefanfisk 9y ago
  utility bills and other regular stuff like that can be delivered electronically to your bank account in Sweden, such that you just log in and approve them. domestic online purchases are commonly paid by card, by a direct bank transfer that's done integrated as part of the checkout, or through Klarna where your just approve the purchase and then sort it out with them afterwards.
  - Gogogogirl 9y ago
    Nice!
- alkonaut 9y ago
  No (well, not quite), for online purchases in web shops I either just use my card or I use "bank direct payment" which goes via the same authorization (BankID smartphone app) used for both the direct to phone-number payments (Swish) and for online banking in most/all banks and other major companies and authorities. I don't get paper bills for services such as phone/power/water/insurance/tv, they are delivered to my bank electronically and either paid automatically or I log in (BankID smartphone app) and confirm the payments. So the transfer system isn't used for bills, but the same authorization system is used for bills/banking and direct transfer.

parmesan 9y ago

Most people use it at least once a week, I use it around 2-5 times per week. It's awesome.

dazc 9y ago

My spanish teacher, for example, accepts all payments via a similar method. She has several skype students based all over the world and the traditional methods of transfer are expensive and unwieldy. There are also issues with Spain being rather anti people setting up simple businesses from home.

flexie 9y ago

A lot. In Denmark, if you go out with 3 friends, one pays the bill at the restaurant and the others transfer their share to him (with one swipe on the phone to the friends phone number or email address that you already have so no need to set up receivers). When you go to a birthday afterwards, one has bought the present and the others transfer their part to him. Danes send money to eachother daily.

ThomPete 9y ago

It's one of the biggest successes in the fintech sector. MobilePay in Denmark, Venmo, Cash, Paypal in the US most of the use debit card/bank accounts. One of the problems turning it into a business though is that the Durbin Amendment and national legislation have reduced the interchange fees so that it's hard/illegal to charge for use of the card. But it's a booming business that only just started.

darrenf 9y ago

Anecdotally I'm doing it at least once a week. Unlike several other respondents I rarely split a food bill (easier to just do that in the restaurant), but whenever there's advance tickets that need buying for transport or basically anything with an entrance fee (gig, play, sporting event, etc) then IME 100% of the time one person buys and the other attendees make them whole.

rorykoehler 9y ago

New technologies change behaviour. People are offended now when I offer cash to split the bill in Singapore. They immediate retort with "PayLah!" the name of the local version of this service.

ClassyJacket 9y ago

Multiple times a week. Like if you go out with friends and have them pay for something for you.

wastedhours 9y ago

To back up the rest of the anecdata here, I'd also say "all the time". Mainly for tickets, or dinner, or bills in a shared house. In fact, because most UK banks have pretty OK mobile apps, you can do it there and then, and with Faster Payments, it'll be in the recipient's account before the transaction actually comes out.

rco8786 9y ago

I transfer money to individuals multiple times a week via Square Cash or Venmo.

zmk_ 9y ago

I used the app four times since I moved to Sweden 2 years ago. I haven't touched cash, actually I am not sure how the current notes/coins (they changed them) look like. If you shop in stores/restaurants then you use cards mostly. Swish in my experience is for splitting bills (less common), at after work parties when someone buys beers and you pay them back, for very small vendors who do not want to bother with banks for getting CC terminals.