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It’s not bad. It is simply a product of its time: according to planet money in that 2013 piece, ACH batch processing runs only once per day and only during ban
by TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
It’s not bad. It is simply a product of its time: according to planet money in that 2013 piece, ACH batch processing runs only once per day and only during bank hours (no weekends, etc).
Presumably, increasing that frequency would break something in the system or it would already have been done.
In the ‘70s, no one predicted 24/7 banking or even ATMs let alone internet payments. I remember my father using an ATM for the first time in 1981, I think. Perhaps it was 1980. But we had to drive 7 miles to get to it.
Stocks were still traded in fractions, not decimals!
- lyrrad 6y agoThings have improved somewhat since then, with the introduction of Same Day ACH, which provides two additional ACH processing periods each business day. https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-moving-payments-faster-phase-3 https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-moving-payments-fas... It's more expensive than regular ACH transactions. The above page seems to indicate the sending bank has to pay the receiving bank 5.2 cents per same day transaction on top of regular ACH fees (that appear to be 0.0185 cents per transaction sent or received for 2020).
- tcbawo 6y agoFunnily enough, US stocks were trading in fractions until 2001!
- dlubarov 6y agoI think credit card transactions are even worse -- most transactions (besides authorizations) are also communicated via daily batch files, and there are several middlemen involved, with potential delays at each step. Hence "refunds usually show up in 5-7 days."