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I don't understand this thing about slow financial transactions. Does it really take days to send money from one account to another in the US? Here in India, w

I don't understand this thing about slow financial transactions. Does it really take days to send money from one account to another in the US? Here in India, we have a thing called IMPS. You can send money instantly from one account to another. Transaction cost is a flat Rs. 5 (less than $0.10) for any transaction size. There are other newer protocols as well such as UPI which I haven't really used because IMPS serves my needs perfectly. Sending money to another account is basically a non-issue here.

zaarn 8y ago
From my understanding, US transactions can take a week if you're unlike and the banks need to shovel around a bit. And tbh, the banking situation in the US is just amazingly bad. Horrifyingly bad if I believe the more out-there stories I hear from people. The only time I got charged a fee was for a transaction into the US (the fee was currency exchange fee and nothing else). And the fee was seperate so the transaction amount was unchanged. Yet in the US it seems possible that banks will take a piece of a transaction for themselves. --- In search of a solution to a problem nobody but the US had, we have blockchain now.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  > the banking situation in the US is just amazingly bad At one time I used to get paid from a US employer's Bank of America account. I also had an account in the same bank, but transferring the money between our accounts in the same bank took 3 days. I presume due to some split between business/personal banking, but still absolutely ridiculous. We switched to sending the payments to my European account through SWIFT, and those payments happened same-day.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    No, it's not slow (for the most part) because "reasons", it's slow because they are legally allowed to be slow and they can finagle a bit more profit that way.
    - kalleboo 8y ago
      How does Bank of America profit off of making transfers between Bank of America accounts slower than making transfers to other banks?
      - TylerE 8y ago
        Because then they can float the money and put it in things that earn them interest... E.g. debit from Bob's account on Monday, put in <money market/whatever> from Monday until Thursday, and then put it Alice's account on Friday.
        kalleboo 8y ago
        But they invest money that's sitting in a checking account already, there's no difference between it sitting in an account and it being "in transit"
        reitanqild 8y ago
        I guess they don't pay interest to neither the sender or the receiver while it is "in transit"?

zaarn 8y ago

From my understanding, US transactions can take a week if you're unlike and the banks need to shovel around a bit. And tbh, the banking situation in the US is just amazingly bad. Horrifyingly bad if I believe the more out-there stories I hear from people. The only time I got charged a fee was for a transaction into the US (the fee was currency exchange fee and nothing else). And the fee was seperate so the transaction amount was unchanged. Yet in the US it seems possible that banks will take a piece of a transaction for themselves. --- In search of a solution to a problem nobody but the US had, we have blockchain now.

kalleboo 8y ago
> the banking situation in the US is just amazingly bad At one time I used to get paid from a US employer's Bank of America account. I also had an account in the same bank, but transferring the money between our accounts in the same bank took 3 days. I presume due to some split between business/personal banking, but still absolutely ridiculous. We switched to sending the payments to my European account through SWIFT, and those payments happened same-day.
- TylerE 8y ago
  No, it's not slow (for the most part) because "reasons", it's slow because they are legally allowed to be slow and they can finagle a bit more profit that way.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    How does Bank of America profit off of making transfers between Bank of America accounts slower than making transfers to other banks?
    - TylerE 8y ago
      Because then they can float the money and put it in things that earn them interest... E.g. debit from Bob's account on Monday, put in <money market/whatever> from Monday until Thursday, and then put it Alice's account on Friday.
      - kalleboo 8y ago
        But they invest money that's sitting in a checking account already, there's no difference between it sitting in an account and it being "in transit"
        reitanqild 8y ago
        I guess they don't pay interest to neither the sender or the receiver while it is "in transit"?