5 ms·

How is this linked to an iban account. Is it a bit like a one off sepa? I've always been curious as to why iban is not used more, say I don't care for credit ca

by wrnr 6y ago

How is this linked to an iban account. Is it a bit like a one off sepa? I've always been curious as to why iban is not used more, say I don't care for credit cards and just want to trust my customers.

p_l 6y ago
Well, IBAN is just universal account number. The actual transfer systems are more complex and differ heavily between EU countries. You have SWIFT, which is general correspondence-based system for international transfers, of which SEPA is essentially a special agreement on how certain setup of SWIFT transfers are to be handled (essentially if you select certain transfer parameters you fall under agreement rules, otherwise not). Intra-country transfer systems have more variability, unfortunately I can only speak about how UK and Poland did it, with UK having a very legacy numbering scheme where you only touch IBAN when you do international transfers (at least when I dealt with it last time in 2014), whereas in Poland all banking uses IBAN accounts (minus PL prefix) because that's what national interbank clearing system uses - and by extension paying for things by bank transfer are the norm, with widespread usage of the large "address space" of IBAN to create individual accounts even per contract (for example, if you take a loan, or pay for some service, you will usually pay to a bank account made just for that contract). Ultimately, the difference is that there's effectively no extra cost for handling bank transfers in Poland, the clearing happens fast enough (usually max 1 business day, there are multiple clearing batches per day and it essentially depends on whether your transfer enters the system before the last batch of the day is calculated - with UK, I encountered multi-day wait times). Since there are no cheques, you essentially have three options - cash, bank transfers, and cards - and accepting bank transfers is the simplest approach outside of "cash direct in hand". An ecosystem of utilities to make it even simpler had grown out of making common simple & fast way of doing electronic transfers.
- kmlx 6y ago
  > with UK, I encountered multi-day wait times 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 :) it’s mind boggling honestly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service
  - p_l 6y ago
    It's distribution was very unequal in my experience (2008-2014). Not as bad as USA, but still. And of course the acceptance of bank transfers seemed hilariously low vs cheques.
  - Tijdreiziger 6y ago
    A similar system was implemented across the SEPA in 2017, although it's opt-in for banks. https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-credit-transfer https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...

by wrnr 6y ago

p_l 6y ago

Well, IBAN is just universal account number. The actual transfer systems are more complex and differ heavily between EU countries. You have SWIFT, which is general correspondence-based system for international transfers, of which SEPA is essentially a special agreement on how certain setup of SWIFT transfers are to be handled (essentially if you select certain transfer parameters you fall under agreement rules, otherwise not). Intra-country transfer systems have more variability, unfortunately I can only speak about how UK and Poland did it, with UK having a very legacy numbering scheme where you only touch IBAN when you do international transfers (at least when I dealt with it last time in 2014), whereas in Poland all banking uses IBAN accounts (minus PL prefix) because that's what national interbank clearing system uses - and by extension paying for things by bank transfer are the norm, with widespread usage of the large "address space" of IBAN to create individual accounts even per contract (for example, if you take a loan, or pay for some service, you will usually pay to a bank account made just for that contract). Ultimately, the difference is that there's effectively no extra cost for handling bank transfers in Poland, the clearing happens fast enough (usually max 1 business day, there are multiple clearing batches per day and it essentially depends on whether your transfer enters the system before the last batch of the day is calculated - with UK, I encountered multi-day wait times). Since there are no cheques, you essentially have three options - cash, bank transfers, and cards - and accepting bank transfers is the simplest approach outside of "cash direct in hand". An ecosystem of utilities to make it even simpler had grown out of making common simple & fast way of doing electronic transfers.

kmlx 6y ago
> with UK, I encountered multi-day wait times 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 :) it’s mind boggling honestly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service
- p_l 6y ago
  It's distribution was very unequal in my experience (2008-2014). Not as bad as USA, but still. And of course the acceptance of bank transfers seemed hilariously low vs cheques.
- Tijdreiziger 6y ago
  A similar system was implemented across the SEPA in 2017, although it's opt-in for banks. https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-credit-transfer https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...